


i’ll see you (on the dark side of the moon)

by luxuriantegg



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Complete, Don't question it, F/F, Foreshadowing, Gratuitous Use of Pink Floyd Lyrics, Headcanons That Became a Personal Canon, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Sex, Multi, POV Robin Buckley, Post S3, Robin Buckley backstory, Robin Buckley has powers, as canon compliant as possible, beware the existential wonderings, honestly tags are p much updated as i write, im going to apologize in advance for the omc, it took me way too long to realize i couldve done headcanons for axel, like a lot of it. just don't take a lot of moments for granted, like hozier said. they will come back, not a songfic but there is a lot of influence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 71,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23933086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxuriantegg/pseuds/luxuriantegg
Summary: Robin usually finds herself fourth wheeling with Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan. It isn't that she doesn't love their company. She just feels that she needs to branch out and find a group to call her own.As it turns out, branching out requires her to fall hopelessly in love with a remarkably dangerous girl, do some trite soul searching, and uncover a much darker backstory than she'd ever bargained for.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley/Kali Prasad
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19





	1. speak to me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin stares at a tree. Steve just wants to rent a movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi so uh.
> 
> i woke up one day and said man. robin needs a girlfriend. and yes. i couldve stopped there. instead, i mellowed out to some pink floyd and decided to make a very very very convoluted plot in order to get robin with kali even though i couldve very easily just told you "they are girlfriends and you are going to deal with it." and honestly that wouldve saved me a lot of time. but im long and im strong. and im down to get the fiction on so ladies, i present you with the mess that emerged from like six months of writing.
> 
> (it's not actually a mess, there's actually a lot of stuff that ties together and like its about the small things if youre looking for them ok bye)

Red stained the trees. Well, not just red. Orange, yellow, and brown pigmented the leaves also. They fell off their branches on occasion, growing weary of the view. For whatever reason, those piles of multicolored leaves begged for someone to jump in them. But, Robin didn’t have the time. Though her gaze fell over the large magnolia just outside of the Blockbuster, her presence was needed inside the store in case of the wayward fellow who might drift in. 

These were few and far in-between. The only signs of life in the store often ended up being Steve, Keith, or her. And she was thankful for it. Emptiness gave her room to daydream. Not that she really had much to daydream about other than a spare crush here and there. Kissing under the magnolia after a day of work didn’t seem too bad a premise, but no chance that was happening. The wheels of daydreams were only spun further by the almost hypnotic _Careless Whisper_ playing overhead on the in-store radio.

She’d hoped to have broken the barriers and get casted as Romeo for the long awaited school play. Only made sense to have given the lead male role to dumb, stupid Derek Posey and his dumb, stupid abs. And of course, pretty, beautiful, gorgeous, and tragically tone-deaf Tammy Thompson would get the role of Juliet. Thankfully, she wouldn’t have to be singing for Shakespeare. Even though she tried to make light of it, Robin felt herself crumple every time she thought of it. They couldn’t even give her the nurse or Lady Capulet. Once again, and in her senior year, she was just a stage tech. How unfair could the world get?

Barreling out of the horror aisle, Steve slammed a VHS tape onto the counter. He practically bubbled with excitement. The movie was _Nightmare on Elm Street_ , a new arrival. 

Robin hadn’t the foggiest idea why anyone would want to watch it, or any horror movie for that matter. Blood and guts spilling on the screen only served as an excuse for stupid guys to throw their stupid arms around a girl who probably only agreed to the date because she knew he’d put that move on her once she gave the slightest hop. Just an opinion, but a correct one, based on the high school hearsay.

She pressed her lips together. “Should I ask, or...?” 

Steve hummed, tapping a discordant and nervous rhythm on the case. “I wanted to catch this when it came out, but Nancy was busy at Jonathan’s and...” He barely managed to look up. “I didn’t want to make you feel like you were second choice, so I just stayed home.” 

What a hero. Robin nodded with raised brows. “Thanks. Glad you considered that.” 

“No problem. Anyway, I’m gonna try to get Nance over if you wanted to drop by tonight to watch it?” 

Algebra decided to kick her ass today. Thirty problems for homework. She had English wrapped around her finger and history just as well. Algebra escaped her, and she’d be lucky if she’d even have the problems done by her sixth period, and by that time, Algebra would’ve passed her up four periods ago. A movie night would only sink her further.

Noticing her silence, Steve mumbled, “I think you’d really like it,” in an attempt to entice her. 

“Hey, slow down buddy, you haven’t even rented it yet,” she laughed, eyes trailing to the side. Man, the _Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back_ poster really had a blue sheen to it. No one was going to grab that three-for-one deal if all they could focus on was the monochrome cardboard.

“Right, right.” Steve looked down at his wallet, then, his eyes trailed up to Robin’s. “What’s up?”

Robin jerked her head back. “Besides my usual wistful gaze toward yon willow? Nothing much.”

“You just seem kinda down.” Steve played with his thumb, avoiding her eyes.

Was she that obvious? Just earlier she daydreamed of kissing a girl under the beautiful conifer outside. Surely, the joyous lust of daydreaming would have overtaken the despair of a deconstructed aspiration. 

But alas, there was no playing coy with Steve Harrington. Robin didn’t even want to expend the effort of trying to persuade him into seeing her mask of happiness as her actual face. Might as well come clean. “It’s just... this dumb play. Romeo and Juliet,” she said.

“Oh.” Steve tapped a couple beats on the table, staring off into the eyes of Harrison Ford behind Robin. “I think I was ‘Fuck’ or something for one of those.”

Robin squinted, lowering her head. “You mean Puck?”

“Yeah. Puck. I quit after that year.” 

Oh, yeah. He was Puck. The worst Puck they’d ever had, according to the director. But, his parents were rich, and the theater director appreciated a good bribing every now and again. Was that how Tammy landed the role of Juliet? Probably not, but Robin wouldn’t have put other means of bribery past her. 

“I remember,” Robin said, though she regretted revisiting the memory of Steve singing the Sesame Street theme song every time he couldn’t remember his lines. In the actual performances. Robin chuckled bitterly. “I was a stage tech then. I’m still a stage tech. It’s been four years, and I’m still a stage tech.”

“Can you act?” Steve asked, the question coming out automatically.

“Yes!” Robin shouted, nearly leaning over the kiosk. She relaxed as self-doubt ran through her. “I mean— I think I can.” She blew in frustration. “They just didn’t want to give me a part because I wanted Romeo.”

“Wouldn’t they have made Juliet a guy?” Steve shrugged when Robin shot him a look. “I’m just saying. It probably wouldn’t have turned out the way you wanted anyway.”

“Probably not. And still yet, I feel robbed. I mean—four years of service to this dumb theater troupe and all I have to show for it is stage tech? Really?”

“Why don’t you just quit?” Steve asked. “What’s holding you there?”

“Nothing, really. Just this overwhelming feeling that I should stick with it,” Robin sighed.

Steve’s brows met upward. He probably didn’t want to hear this. He just wanted to check out a scary movie. Still, he held his heart out. “I’m sorry. That’s really rough.”

Robin crossed her arms on the counter, chin resting on the back of her hand. “I know it isn’t the end of the world.” 

“No, but you totally deserved it. If they can’t see your Romeo qualities, then you just gotta prove it to them.” Steve gave her a couple finger guns of confidence. “Go seduce your Juliet, Robs. She’s out there somewhere.”

“That somewhere is nowhere in Hawkins. Maybe New York.”

“Who knows. Perhaps you’ve been looking for a Kermit when you really should’ve been looking for a Mrs. Piggy,” Steve mocked the Muppets to the best of his ability. His ability was talking out of the side of his mouth and then a falsetto that would make a soprano blush.

Robin laughed into her hand. Ok. Enough of this sappy talk. Enough about her in general. Time to deflect. She let her laugh trail off. “Hey, so are you still nursing that crush on Nancy’s guy?”

Steve looked as caught as a cat scratching the furniture. “Excuse me—Robin—wait—hold on—who—who gave you the right—I have never—Robin, what in—how did—“ Steve finally just huffed. “No.”

“Ok. I’ll ask again next month.” Robin gave a quick flick of her brows. “Just checking.”

“Great way to end a conversation,” Steve griped.

“Yet, you’re still talking,” Robin noted.

Steve heaved a long sigh. He combed his hands into his hair, staring down at the movie. All he wanted to do was rent a horror flick, Robin knew, and yet they were now pursuing this tired old argument. Did she feel badly though? No, Steve was being dumb and oblivious as always. Steve drove without a license down the lane of love. Robin couldn’t help but try to help him steer, despite not having a license herself.

Finally, Steve managed to gather his thoughts. “Okay, let’s say I did like him. I also just so happen to like Nancy. What does that make me?”

Robin only had to give it a moment’s thought. “Bisexual and open to a polyamorous relationship.”

Steve blinked. “What?” 

“You like both and you want both.” It seemed obvious to her.

“This is news to me,” Steve murmured. 

“No, it’s not,” Robin scoffed. “I tell you this every time. This is just the first time you’ve admitted that you might like him. Other than that...” 

“You don’t ever put it in a simple man’s terms. Robin... it feels right, but...” 

Steve sunk to the ground, back to the kiosk. Robin walked around the corner. He had his head in his hands. Always the emotional one. Couldn’t he ever build a wall like Robin had? Maybe she shouldn’t have brought it up. She sat beside him, shoulder to shoulder, and head in the crook of his neck. He threw his hands in his lap and looked miserably down at her. Robin parted her lips, lost for words. “Steve...” she tried.

“Robin,” Steve shook his head. “They wouldn’t.” 

“Steve,” Robin said quickly. “Take your own advice. Prove yourself wrong. Go out there and seduce your Romeo and Juliet.”

He furrowed his brow. “I thought they were just straight for each other.”

Robin put her arms on his shoulder, resting her head against them. She looked down. Maybe it was a bad metaphor there. “Well yeah, I meant—“

“Who would even be the other guy in the relationship?” 

“I don’t know—“

“The gay one?” 

Robin closed her eyes, letting a laugh fall from her lips at the thought of Steve being Mercutio. “Steve, we were having a moment—“

“I couldn’t be the gay one—I like both.” 

Laughing, Robin stood. Steve lightly punched her in the leg as he went down on his side. She wouldn’t be surprised if his cause of death ended up being accidental suffocation from laughing too hard. She’d never met someone with such a crippling laugh. 

Robin took a seat on the edge of the kiosk. “And the moment is over.” 

Steve flopped over on his back. His arm shot up, and Robin got a full face of Freddy Krueger. “Checkout please,” he commanded.

Of course he had to get an extra wheezing laugh out of her. She swiveled herself off of the kiosk and snatched the tape from his hand as she made her way to the register. She leaned over the desk, practically planking on it. Steve smiled dumbly up at her. 

A few seconds passed before either said anything. Finally, Robin raised her brow. “I need money?”

“Oh!” Steve exclaimed, jumping to his feet without the use of his arms. Quite the acrobat. He had performed his Puck duties with ease. Except, of course, the most important duty of remembering his lines. 

Steve produced his wallet, which Robin took before he could get out any money. She already knew the contents from the food outings they’d had sometimes, but she couldn’t help but fish around for the Christmas Polaroid that Steve kept of him being kissed on the cheek (facetiously on the other guy’s part, she assumed) under the mistletoe by Nancy and her boyfriend. Though, if she was understanding correctly, Nancy was with Steve at the time of the picture. 

Robin slipped the picture in his jacket pocket. She patted it and kept her hand there as she looked into Steve’s eyes. “I’ll take it out of my check if you go for it tonight.” 

“You really think anything would ever happen?” Steve groused.

“Yes. Absolutely. And if not...” Robin shrugged. “... my loss I guess.”

And the award for the dopiest smile went to Steve because she’d never seen a more endearingly stupid smile. It almost blinded her with how bright he beamed. If he was in a competition with the sun, she was sure he would win. 

Her eyes trailed down to the mahogany. If Lady Luck had come her way, she supposed she’d smile just as nicely. And if Lady Luck wanted to hold her hand and tell her pretty she was and play with her hair and maybe kiss her on the cheek and on the forehead and on the neck and finally on the lips and look her in the eyes like her love would be the only thing that would ever matter—well, Robin wouldn’t have minded. But Lady Luck had other places to be. At least for Robin. Lady Luck was practically knocking down Steve’s door, and he was just hiding out in the basement, back to the door and holding very tightly onto a nail bat. 

“Hey.” Robin barely noticed Steve’s fingertips brushing hers. When she looked up, he’d already picked up the tape and was probably on his way out. He gave her a heartening look. “Come by tonight, if you get the chance,” he said softly.

“Well, if your name suddenly becomes Steve ‘The Algebra Master’ Harrington, then I’ll be there for sure,” Robin joked. Still, even if algebra wasn’t absolutely dominating her day plans, she wouldn’t have gotten between Steve, Nancy, and that other guy. Three was a date. Four was a crowd.

Steve shot off some finger guns before heading out. She supposed it was her turn to close up shop, then.

By the time she got done, Steve was long gone. All that was left happened to be her and her chained up bike. Though she was thankful not to have a Ford that people coveted like Steve, she would’ve appreciated something she could take another person on. Maybe a kid could, but she was just a little bigger than a kid now. 

Sometimes she still felt like a kid. But, her birthday was just around the corner. Steve had been especially coy about it lately, pretending to forget every time she brought it up. Didn’t matter much. She already figured out that he was getting her a Kermit puppet. Took a lot of sleuthing, but he knew how important that conversation had been to her, and he hinted often that he wanted to show her how much it meant to him to be a holder of such a significant secret. 

Either that or he was getting her a Han Solo figurine. Han Solo was just objectively the best Star Wars character. Who wouldn’t want to fly a starship and seduce princesses in space? 

Certainly not Robin. Out loud, anyway. But she and Steve had bonded over a mutual love for the character once they’d sat down and marathoned the movies over the summer. 

And though space adventures filled her day and night dreams, she supposed she could settle for the regular runarounds she had in Hawkins. What didn’t happen in Hawkins? Just months ago, she was infiltrating a Russian base underneath the town. Sometimes, she found herself looking over her shoulder. Just waiting for the next Russian spy to pop out of the ground and do... whatever Russians did after popping up out of the ground. Maybe next time she would have a space adventure. It’d be fun.

Despite having met the child briefly, she still didn’t quite understand what was going on with that Eleven kid. Was she the eleventh in a series? Did she have eleven powers? Eleven. Robin didn’t think she’d ever get it. The girl was just plain freaky. She had those telekinetic powers. And more, according to Steve. Even he didn’t get it, having stumbled through a whole catch-up routine with her more than once. The names all slipped her brain. She knew Nancy, Eleven, Mike, and Will. She never really sat down to talk with them, but she got the gist of who they were. Eleven seemed to be the center of it all. Or maybe Will was. He seemed just as weird as Eleven.

As far as she knew, everything was over. No sign of anything else happening. That was good. She could use the breather. Summer was the perfect time for all of that to have happened. If it happened now, it would’ve put her in quite the bind with school and all. Algebra didn’t wait for Russian plans to dominate the world. Algebra demanded it be done in the here and now.

Robin stopped at the junction between the Shell station and the road to the quarry. Fuck it. She deserved a breather before diving headfirst into the world that was numbers and letters living together—mass hysteria. 

So much shit happened at the quarry. First, it got shut down, and a lot of people lost their jobs. Then, they found a dead kid at the bottom. Thought it was that Will kid, but apparently not. She couldn’t remember who it actually was. Oh, and then she had her first kiss out there. Didn’t like it. Was with a guy a couple grades above her, and thankfully he skipped town before she could tell him the exact reason she did not enjoy that kiss very much at all. 

And so the quarry did not make for a happy place. Rather, Robin liked to act as a sponge, soaking up all the negative energy so others didn’t have to. At least, that’s the optimistic view she liked to take. There was just something energizing about it. Negativity could be tranquil and serene in its own right. Like dark matter or the negative space in a painting. 

Most of all, Robin felt like she could just absorb the thoughts of others, as bad as they were, and purge herself of her own. Often, she found herself yelling over the edge, just to get it all out. If a lonely sapphic shouted her love for a girl and no one was around to hear it, did that sapphic even exist? Robin wasn’t sure.

Brake kicked and bike dismounted, Robin journeyed to the edge of the quarry cliff. There were multiple cliff faces, but she always liked the one that sat against the brush, forestry attempting to reclaim it. An old willow had grown there over time. Just last year she could’ve touched the leaves. Now, they’d grown about an inch beyond her reach. She felt proud of it. 

Now was the time for her to breathe it all in. 

In

And

Out.

In

And 

Out.

In... and... out... Man, she wished she could share the area with Steve. He’d probably just give her a funny look and walk off if she ever explained her safe space to him. Maybe he’d laugh it off. 

Robin peered up. Maybe not. Steve wasn’t that kind of guy. Once upon a time, yes. After Nancy and her guy tag teamed some sense into him, he became a rather acceptable ally in this stupid and meandering little game called life. 

Sincerely, she hoped everything was going ok for him. Hoped he’d gotten up with Nancy and the other guy. Got the yes from both. Hoped Steve was happy. Not just happy, actually, but instead bouncing around, up and down, off the walls. Hoped his smile was wider than she’d ever seen. Hoped they felt the same. She felt warm and fluffy just thinking about it. 

On the outside though, she was damn near freezing her ass off being here. Didn’t really matter. She liked being here, and she didn’t particularly mind the cold. All she had to do was button her flannel up. It was just jarring for the wind to have suddenly picked up. She could sense the misery of the kids who realized it was getting too cold to play up here—and, of course, the other reasons not to play up on a cliff as well. 

She picked up a leaf which had drifted down from the willow. Gales brushed against her, and yet, the tree seemed unfazed. It stood still, proud, and tall. No swaying, and no leaves falling from its branches.

A couple more leaves fell beside her. The sound of rustling leaves echoed in her ears, but she hadn’t even seen them leave the tree. Robin got to her feet slowly. One was numb. Never good in a supernatural situation. Not that this was a supernatural situation. Would she have cared if it was a supernatural situation? Probably not, but she would’ve appreciated the heads up via another language to decode like a lesbian Alan Turing. 

But this wasn’t a lesbian Alan Turing situation. Not that she could tell, anyway. No way to really say for sure yet. Seemed more supernatural than anything. The leaves kept falling at her feet, and the great willow above her remained as still as ever. Wind lapped at her face and ran through her hair. 

Though she stared straight ahead, searching for the culprit of this paradox, her answer came out of the corner of her left eye.

Flashing in and out of her vision, a young man in a leather jacket and a long red scarf struggled with an older man who appeared maybe middle-age, if not older, and very nerdy-looking with his lab jacket. Leather Jacket had Lab Jacket by the shoulders with a tight grip, dragging him toward the edge of the quarry. 

Having no context and knowing it wouldn’t end well, instinct told Robin to shout a protest of “Hey!” 

Leather Jacket turned his head toward her, and in shock, his grip noticeably loosened on Lab Jacket. After staring at her for a while, all while dipping in and out of her vision, he looked back at... something. Whatever it was, it remained invisible.

“Kali, I thought you had me covered!” Leather Jacket barked. 

Whatever concentration this “Kali” had dropped as soon as he yelled at them. A mild shockwave of energy swept through the area as the illusion came down, causing Robin to fall to her knees. Upon looking up, she found that Kali was a girl, sitting against a black van. She held her nose in her hands. 

While Leather Jacket distracted himself with concern for her, Lab Jacket loosed himself, making a break for it. Leather Jacket fired off a series of curses and pulled out a revolver from a front pocket. He discharged a shot toward the man’s backside and watched grimly—yet, with a strange relish which almost made Robin lose her lunch—as the man swiveled and fell to his feet. Then, Leather Jacket ran to Kali.

Robin stumbled to her feet. Trying to figure out how to work numb legs and how to work out what in the fuck just happened was not easy. Especially not in combination with the other. And if she was going to lose her life to these ruffians today, then she might as well eke out some information and die an informed corpse.

She half-ran, half-limped to the van where she and Leather Jacket were about to converge. Leather Jacket fully sprinted though, compared to her fumbling act. And when they met, Leather Jacket took her by her flannel and threw her against the van. She would’ve fallen to the ground if not for his hands remaining on her collar.

Up close, he had a very crooked smile that began in a split down the middle from his nose and down his chin, ending just above his neck. His amber eyes squinted furiously, and his downturned black eyebrows only added to the fiery picture. He towered over her much more than she’d expected him to. His hair, which shot straight up in the front with a hint of a wave, only added to his impeccable height. She felt small beside Steve, but this guy made her feel tiny. 

Leather Jacket growled, mumbling something under his breath to the effect of “what to do with you.” And when his mouth opened to speak aloud, it peeled apart like four hands grabbing by the tip pieces of pizza which had been cut into quarters. Behind those slices of skin laid row upon row of serrated teeth as if someone had shrunk millions of shark teeth and pasted them throughout the mouth. These teeth continued even through his murky throat, with no tongue in sight. 

Robin screamed and did what any sensible person would in that situation when they assumed the gender of the person holding them against a surface. Her leg kicked upward between the man’s legs, forcing him away from her as he fell to the ground. 

As she hurried back to the willow and back to her bike, she ran an arm against her eyes to make sure she wasn’t just seeing things. She kicked back the bike stand, hopped on, and pedaled with everything she had to pedal. Leather Jacket was still on the ground, and Kali appeared to be incapacitated in some other way, still holding her nose.

Having gotten a good few feet away from the duo and past the dead body, she felt home free. Really home free. God, she couldn’t believe what she was going to have to tell Steve. There was no way she was working on algebra tonight. Not when two creepies just showed up and fucked up her shit. 

While she’d only passed Lab Jacket briefly, she’d gotten an eye full of the bloody murder, gaining a new mental image to see at night. Black glasses laid ahead of him, and brown freckles had been brushed across his face. Robin grimaced, knowing she could fall to the same fate if she stuck around any longer.

Sparks lit the earth beneath her bike. She contented herself with only a couple glances. 

It was probably nothing.

To her right, a course of flames followed her in the brush on the cliff face. Bringing her bike to a halt, a great wall of blazing fire began to crackle in front of her. And though in the back of her head, she knew she couldn’t feel the heat or hear its crackling spread, she immediately turned her bike around. But with her head being distracted by the inferno, her arms steered her into the rocky cliff and into the darkness. 

Vision went in and out. Hearing the same. Mostly, she could only hear her own heartbeat. Or maybe those were footsteps. If they were, they sounded a lot like footsteps. 

In and out. In and out. Voices spoke behind her. Someone was laughing. Leather Jacket. Could she hear the screaming of Lab Jacket before his death? It felt like it. In and out. Her vision... her sense of the world...

“Hey.... you sti.. ..ive? ... hit that rock ..... .... .” came a voice from her left. Or was it her right? “Hey,” they said again. “Hey,” they tried once more. “H..”

All she could do now was breathe. In and out. Vision... _out_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK SO uH
> 
> i, wrote this,, and i know, i realize, i definitely understand the fact that i couldve made "leather jacket" axel very very easily. but i realized this,,, after seven chapters. so i cant really go back now that i have to show something for my hubris. buckle in because you will be seeing a lot of him all the way up to chapter ten. (i got,, like, attache d and stuff)
> 
> and also it's taken me,,,,,, six months,,, to realize,,, theres already ,,, a nine(spoilers his name is nine), , who is a canon(?) character in the comics,,,, but here's the thing,, i have dumb idiot brain fungus so 
> 
> but dont worry the focus is definitely definitely robin and a mega amount of introspection into her character. u will get what u came for i promise. nine is, for the most part, a plot device that just so happens to get fleshed out. (also his face claim is probably adam dimarco. probably. let me kno if uve seen people w demogorgon faces walkin around an i will edit this)


	2. breathe (in the air).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin gets intel on the mutants. Steve has threesome issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> postin this one a bit earlier in the day than I’d like to due to not only birthday stuff but also graduation lol
> 
> i dont have any behind the scenes notes atm. but if u ever have questions i will not hesitate to answer them(yknow to the extent of spoilers). like if u even want to ask me if i have any other headcanons related to some of the offhand remarks in the chapters, i will absolutely expand upon them.

  
“Bergamot...”

  
“312 Bergamot...” 

“312 Bergamot Road...” 

  
“That’s where Steve lives,” Robin spurted out in a moment of clarity.

“Who the fuck is Steve?” yelled a nasally voice in her head. 

Robin attempted to raise up from a lying position. She fought the good fight, but it was best to keep her head from swimming and just lay down.

She wrenched her eyes open as best as she could. Everything was dark around her anyway. Schemas in her mind told her, however, that there were two seats in front of her. Prior knowledge told her that the people in those seats were most likely that girl and guy she’d just seen at the quarry. 

Fuck it. She’d just have to deal with her brain acting like it was swirling around in her head. She had to get up. Her legs wouldn’t swivel around as she would’ve liked. She slowly realized that her waist was buckled. She unsnapped herself and thrust her figure between the seats.

“Who the fuck are you two?” she screamed at whoever was listening. She didn’t particularly care one way or the other.

Leather Jacket clasped a hand over her mouth. Her hands shot up to twist his grip off, but she was unsuccessful.

“Breathe. Just breathe through your nose and get that air circulating,” his voice spoke in her mind. She was thankful for the telepathy this time. If she had nightmares about that maw for only just the next ten years, she’d be lucky. “We’re not kidnapping you. We’re taking you home.”

“Yeah, but you gave us the wrong fucking address apparently,” the woman driving—she presumed Kali—muttered in a weirdly half British-half inner city accent. “So who is Steve? That your boyfriend?” she asked, never taking her eyes off the road. Well, she did look back for a second, actually, and when she did, Robin’s heart did a jump. It was a dangerous look. Eyes like black holes surrounded by a heavy coat of eyeliner and deep black eyeshadow. 

Having widened her eyes, she surely looked like a deer in the headlights. Robin felt her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth all of a sudden, words unable to exit her throat. She was too busy trying to use her eyes to get that attention back on her. It wasn’t anything. Just curiosity. Those eyes were the kind you had to look deeply into to find the finer details. Even years later, she felt she would still be arguing to whoever would listen that she saw swirls of warm light circling in that girl’s eyes. She just wanted to see it again. Up close. Robin pressed her lips together.

“Who is Steve?” Leather Jacket demanded.

Robin hadn’t even noticed he had his arms crossed now. She was free, for the most part. Still trapped in the van, but at least she could speak now. 

“Steve’s nobody,” she said quickly.

Leather Jacket groaned, throwing his head back in annoyance. “Steve’s somebody, or else when we asked you where you lived, you wouldn’t have used that address. We’re not fucking idiots.”

There was no way of getting out of this. Might as well have been honest. “He’s... a friend.” 

“Just a friend?”

Robin furrowed her brow. “Yeah. A friend. Just friends. That’s what I said.” 

If she really had to go down this road one more time with another person, she was going to lose it. Of course the other girls at school noticed she was hanging out with Steve “The Hair” Harrington. Of course they knew he’d broken up with Nancy. Of course they thought Robin was his new darling on account of how much time they spent together. And of course she wasn’t going to tell them why they weren’t together. And of course she wasn’t going to tell these two assholes why either. 

But Leather Jacket only became more frustrated. “Just friends doesn’t cut it! No man is that important to a woman unless—“

The van came to a harsh stop at a red light. Robin recognized this light as the one just before turning onto Bergamot Road. At least they were nice enough to take her where she wanted to go. 

“Calm down, Nine,” Kali ordered. “I can hear you from here. Can you not keep your channel directed at her?” 

“Become telepathic, and then you can talk. I would take your telechromatia in a heartbeat. Only if I could saddle you with this shit though,” he said, pointing at his mouth with an audible grunt. Robin never would have taken him for a “Nine”. She much preferred “Leather Jacket”. 

Kali ignored him to take a left turn. She cruised, allowing her eyes to fall over the numbers on the mailboxes. The houses on Bergamot were so unbearably upper middle class. They were all brick and carport and pools in the backyard. Though the neighborhood had gotten its name from the wild flower, bergamots only grew around Steve’s house, as far as Robin had explored. Mostly, the flora in the area consisted of hemlock pines and various shrubberies, which all served to make it appear as if the forest was coming through the cracks between the houses to drag everything back into nature with its viridian claws. The Bergamot Road women liked to tend a front lawn of multicolored peonies and roses, and since Mrs. Harrington wasn't a flower person, Steve kept a tiny pot of purple gladiolus in the front of the house that they began to pull into. 

A beat-up slim old junker sat beside Steve’s Ford. Robin had never bothered to learn the species of cars, and at this point she was a little too embarrassed to ask. Didn’t matter. She could tell that Steve’s parents were gone, Steve was home, and he had a visitor. And whether or not he liked it, he was about to get another. 

“Is this it?” Kali asked, looking back at a newly relaxed Robin.

“Yeah,” she replied.

Kali furrowed her brow. “Then get out.” It seemed such an obvious action to her. 

“So that’s it? You’re not going to explain anything that just happened?” Robin objected. She almost felt like boycotting her exit to get some answers. 

“Why should we? You have a number on your wrist we should know about?” Leather Jacket cackled. 

Number? Robin looked down at her wrists. They were barren all the way around. Who had a number on their wrist here? Who would have a number... 

“You mean like Eleven?” she asked. 

Robin felt the weight of the words fall on the van as soon as they left her lips. Kali turned all the way around to face her. Now their eyes were locked, and both were wondering what the other knew. And no matter how much trouble Kali could give her, Robin knew Eleven was a child, and she would fight to her dying breath to protect her if worse came to worse.

“How do you know Jane?” Kali demanded.

“You mean Eleven? Or El? Or Little Hopper? Or whatever the hell, she’s got a million names according to Steve,” Robin admitted, succumbing to the stress of the situation. She knew she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “I’ve only met her one time in person!”

“When? Is she still here?” Kali pressed.

“No! I don’t know! I think Steve’s guy’s mom took her with them because Hawkins is pretty much a hellhole at this point? And her dad died?” Robin guessed.

“Oh, that’s why you and Steve are just friends...” murmured Leather Jacket.

“But you don’t know for sure?” Kali asked, voice desperate. Desperate and hurt, more like. It wasn’t a needy kind of desperate. Robin could tell there was an emotional bond somewhere in there. 

“I’m sorry,” she couldn’t help but apologize. She had no more information to give.

“Do you know where they moved? Please, I have to—“

Kali whipped around at the sound of a door opening. Steve stumbled out, a bowl of popcorn under his arm. He turned to talk to someone inside. Nancy came rushing out, and the two stood, waiting for someone to exit from the vehicle. Nancy’s guy walked up between the two as well, separating them to put an arm around Nancy’s waist protectively. Robin knew she shouldn’t have focused on that, considering the gravity of the situation, but she could just feel Steve’s embarrassment from the van. 

“We have to leave,” Kali said direly. “You’re either with or without us.”

Robin flung an arm toward the three at the door. “They’re the ones with the info!” 

“Then you’re going to get it, and then you’re going to come tell us at the motel, room ten,” Kali ordered. 

“And why am I going to do that?” Robin countered.

Leather Jacket fired back, “Because we know where you live, and things are going to go a lot smoother if you come to us. We wouldn’t want to have to make a night visit to you and...” He glanced back at the three in the door. “Steve, his boyfriend, and your girlfriend. A respectable living situation, honestly.”

“Nancy’s not my girlfriend!” Robin protested. She felt herself thrown back as Kali suddenly put the car into reverse, backing out quickly. “What the fuck?”

“Stay with us, or get out!” Kali shouted frantically, looking back, but past Robin so that she could make the turn.

As Kali thrust the van into drive, Robin opened the door and threw herself out. Leather Jacket must have stretched behind his seat to pull the back door closed again. Robin pushed herself up and stared after them. Fuck. She’d been in enough bike wrecks to know what gravel embedded in her palms and cheeks felt like, but it’d definitely been a while. Fuck. Fuck, she shouldn’t have done that.

She rolled onto her back and began digging the road out of her skin. She then brushed her pants off and laid in the road until someone approached her. From the looks of it, though upside down, she could tell it was Nancy who extended a hand toward her. Robin took it, and wobbling slightly, she steadied herself on the shorter girl’s shoulder. 

Steve and Nancy’s guy stood in the doorway, watching as the girls made their way to them. Robin raised her brows at the hand that grasped Steve’s shoulder in Nancy’s absence. Nancy’s guy noticed her shocked expression and shoved his hand back into his pocket. He shared a look with Steve, and both looked away, flustered.

Robin locked eyes with Steve, and neither had to say a word to understand a need for a moment of privacy.

💾

Sequestered in the kitchen, Steve moved around, fidgety and nervous. Robin sensed that he had already been maintaining this state, but her situation only made things worse. That is to say, she’d never seen Steve try to get out of talking by dragging a six pack out of the bottom of the fridge. He heaved it onto the counter and pulled a can out. 

“Steve,” Robin implored. “I’m being fucking serious.” 

He held the beer out to the side. “Yeah, I am too. Robin, if this isn’t a drinking moment, then I don’t know what to tell you.” He took a knife from a drawer and slashed the bottom of the can. 

“Steve!” Robin chided.

Steve only furrowed his brows in confusion as he shotgunned the drink. He tossed it over his shoulder into the sink. “I’m going to drain this whole thing.”

“Can you try to fucking focus on what I’m telling you? There are fucking mutants out there!” Robin shouted, pointing nowhere in particular, just the general direction of outside.

Nodding, Steve cut the bottom of another can. “You know what you need?” He handed her the can, keeping it horizontal. Robin took it and stomped over to the sink, pulling the tab to let it drain out there and keeping a steady glare on him. Steve shook his head. “Dude, you totally wasted it.”

Robin narrowed her glare as he turned to get another can. “What if they’re Russians? What if they’re trying to bring the demo-whatever back? That guy I was talking about had one of those peely-mouths you’ve mentioned. And the girl could literally make me see a wall of fire—that wasn’t there!” 

Steve sighed, probably coming to terms with the fact that he wasn’t going to get out of this conversation without some kind of input. “Okay, here’s my thing. It doesn’t involve us.”

“What?” Robin near-screeched.

“Wait— Wait— Robin, I don’t mean we should stay out of it. I just mean we shouldn’t take it so personally. This is more something for Jon and Nance,” Steve explained. “Eleven isn’t our business. And she’s a perfectly capable kid.”

“I really don’t think anyone should hire you for a babysitter anymore,” Robin groaned. She bit her lip and tried to make herself relax against the sink. “What do we do, then?”

“I’m gonna tell Jon and Nance. Jon’s probably gonna get Eleven from the Wheelers’ and go home. I guess Joyce’ll put some kind of defense together. Being a badass mom is kind of her thing,” Steve said. He shrugged. “That’s just my guess. I don’t really know, Robin. I’m not the planner of the group.”

Robin nodded. That was fair enough. She couldn’t put all that stress on him without him pushing back against her. She heaved the four-pack off the counter. Maybe just one would be fine.

The living room held an air of warmth, though a tingle of tenseness seemed to run through that air as well. Nancy and Jonathan huddled together on the couch, probably some of the most comfortable people with each other that Robin had ever seen. It was baffling, really. They weren’t so much the seniors she knew that were all over each other, unable to pry apart. Moreso, they took up each other’s space, hands entwined, hands in each other's laps, and Nancy’s cheek resting on Jonathan’s shoulder. Then, in a chair almost perpendicular to the couch, sat Steve, who appeared almost folded in, hands clasped and legs crossed. Robin set the pack down on the coffee table and sat beside it. 

What the hell. Might as well take a can while Steve delivered the secondhand exposition. He did a fine job, giving Nancy and Jonathan the important beats without dwelling on the sidenotes like how pretty Kali’s eyes were, or that guy’s teeth—goddamn, those fucking teeth. That guy could probably tear someone’s face off. There was no reasonable way she could convey the events that just unfolded without spending at least ten minutes going into stark detail about it. The teeth or the eyes, really. 

As the information unfolded, Jonathan straightened himself, and Nancy did the same in response. She moved to get up. Such a feisty little thing she was. Robin always did appreciate the resolve she’d amassed over the years. Seeing it in person compared to Steve’s descriptions took her a little by storm. 

“I have to at least call Mike and warn them,” Nancy said.

Jonathan took Nancy’s fingertips in his own, soft and tender. “All that’s going to do is make them confront this on their own,” he said quietly.

“So they should just sit in the darkness while we’ve got a girl who can show you anything with her mind and a guy who’s, like, half-demogorgon?” Nancy scoffed, taking back her hand. “Give me a fucking break, Jon!” 

Jonathan readjusted his position on the couch as he spluttered to make a comeback. “I’m just saying they’re very headstrong kids! They just— they go out and— and they think they know everything, but they don’t! They just don’t! And they will absolutely take it into their own hands!”

“So did we!” Nancy burst out. 

Robin rolled her eyes and took a sip of beer. Okay, maybe she needed to tone the resolve down just a bit. 

“Nancy, calm down,” Steve said measuredly, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Steve—“

“Nancy—“

“Steve, this is bullshit!” she screamed.

_“Nancy!“_

She huffed, knowing she’d just struck a nerve she hadn’t meant to hit. “Steve, I can’t sit idly by while they’re out there, and my brother doesn’t even know that he could be in danger. To use Jonathan’s argument: he _will_ do anything to protect Eleven. So I’m going to do everything I can to protect him.”

Steve looked helplessly to Robin for support. 

“Here’s what I propose.” Robin drained the rest of her beer and slammed the empty can on the table. “All of you take a goddamn breather and sleep on it.” 

Silent, they all stared at her with varying levels of concern. Nancy slowly retook her seat next to Jonathan. He slipped his left hand into hers and laid an arm around her shoulders. Robin took another can from the pack. Though she’d been staring at Steve without meaning to, he didn’t even notice. His eyes were on Jonathan and Nancy and the lack of space between them. Robin could practically feel the weight on his chest from where he was.

Robin made her gaze more intent. Steve finally made eye contact. Her eyes danced between him and the couch. When he still didn’t understand, she gave her head a quick jerk to the right. He still didn’t get it.

“Steve, can I get a real seat?” Robin asked rather brashly. She hadn’t meant for it to come out so loud or harsh, but it at least spurred Steve to move to the couch so that she could take his seat in the leather chair. 

Thankfully, this didn’t make anything awkward. Instead, the living room became more comfortable and warm, all feelings of isolation and inhospitality gone. Robin was supposed to be the outlier. This was fine. She always had been when Jonathan and Nancy were involved. Steve and Nancy looked like they’d never even been separated in the first place. Nancy’s right hand grasped Steve’s with a certain intensity she didn’t give to Jonathan, because she didn’t have to prove anything to him. Steve leaned to his right, away from her, still afraid to mean anything. Aloof, he laid his head back against the couch, sort of taking Robin’s proposal a little seriously. Behind his neutral face and closed eyes, Robin could tell his heart fluttered and his mind raced. It was mostly in the way he breathed, sporadic and yet content.

Robin almost felt jealous. Almost. 

She still didn’t have that person whom she’d rather die than not be with. They shattered Steve, and they glued Steve back together. Robin wasn’t sure how much she actually wanted that. To die a thousand deaths when that girl might look at another. To have life breathed back into her when the girl’s eyes, soft and gentle, roamed over her once more. 

Restless, Robin readjusted herself in the seat so that her legs dangled off the arm. She’d fall asleep there, can half-full of beer, and brain half-empty of dreams. 

💾

Mumbling sleepy thoughts, Robin found herself waking up to an empty living room. It occurred to her only now as her gaze fell over a black television screen that she’d never asked Steve how the movie went. Then, it occurred to her that everything that happened yesterday was real, and it did happen. 

It did happen, Robin reminded herself as she shook off the cover someone placed on her in the middle of the night. Everything was real, she thought as she stretched, having previously been curled into a ball in the chair. That wasn’t something she made up, she remembered as her feet moved her into the kitchen, body on autopilot. They could all be in danger, she mused as she helped herself a bowl of cereal. 

Sunbeams fell over her through the window above the sink. Felt good to be able to enjoy a meal in the kitchen with some peace and quiet. Steve couldn’t be an early bird if he tried. Robin’s parents were a different story, and their obsessions with being overly kind and overly in her business were also a different story. Safe to say, Robin appreciated the times when she could wake up here, gone from them. 

Another thought ran through her mind. She had school today. Fuck it. The world could be ending again. Algebra would be the only class that was taken seriously as Hawkins High approached Fall Break next week, and she couldn’t do math anyway. No point to it. No application besides the odd bit of cashier-work. Wasn’t like she was going to be a rocket scientist anytime soon. Maybe she should’ve gotten on that track earlier. Could’ve been in Houston by now with a rockin’ science girlfriend who she would’ve managed to woo with all her mathematical expertise. 

Ha.

What a fucking joke. 

If she’d applied herself, sure, yeah, she could’ve done it. Little late now. She was stuck in Hawkins, Indiana for who knew how long. There was always college. Probably art college. Probably a writing degree. Fuck actual art. She couldn’t draw worth a shit. Poetry though? Oh, absolutely. She was a goddamn artisan. And she’d flex on everyone in this house, but she was busy eating cereal. Lucky Charms, in fact. No other cereal carried the same amount of dichotomy that Lucky Charms did. The same amount of juxtaposition. The same paradoxes. See, Lucky Charms were the ultimate form of torture and the ultimate form of pleasure. Couldn’t have one without the other. Such was the way of life. And anybody who wondered if the pleasurable piece happened to be the wheat-based product was kidding themselves. Any sadsack who preferred it to the marshmallows didn’t deserve human rights.

One time she snorted a line of marshmallow dust from the bottom of the Lucky Charms bag on a dare from Steve. He gave her fifty bucks for it. That was fucking nothing compared to the high she got later. And yes, she did couple it with some weed Steve managed to get ahold of. They absolutely saw rainbows that night. And the night after that.

Robin set the empty bowl in the sink and went to tidy up the living room. There wasn’t much to fix. She only had to put the two-pack back in the bottom of the fridge before Steve’s parents got back(which, who knew when that would be) and throw away her empty cans. On the table, she noticed the cover of Star Wars: A New Hope without a tape, and Nightmare on Elm Street in its cover. They must’ve watched at least one more movie while she slept. How cute. 

She figured she’d better check on Steve. The oak clock above the television read ten in the morning. No alarm existed to wake her up. She was in third period. Steve had no reason to care about this. However, they were on a timer. The mutants would be dropping by tonight if they didn’t get their information. 

After journeying upstairs, she made a left. There was a guest room to the right, which was probably where Jonathan and Nancy were sleeping. Robin knocked on Steve’s door. There was, understandably, no answer. He'd sleep in until four in the afternoon if she let him.

If she didn’t need to wake him up, she would’ve let sleeping dogs lie, but instead, she opened the door a crack—and oh. Laying there on the king size was Steve at the rightmost with his arm dangling off the side, Jonathan in the middle with his arm wrapped around Steve’s waist, and Nancy on the left edge, sweetly dozing against Jonathan’s back. Light shone only on Nancy. The boys basked in the natural angles of darkness in Steve’s room. White sheets hung on them, but mostly on Nancy and Jonathan, and Robin wasn’t exactly interested in what she could see of Steve. Still, the situation was dire, and this was no time to be lying around. 

Robin rapped on the wall. She managed to startle Steve awake, and the other two followed suit as soon as they sensed his movement. Though they didn’t appear to be troubled by Robin, Steve pulled the sheet over himself, all hot and bothered about it. Wasn’t like it was a new sight for her. They’d gotten high enough times for skinny dipping and terribly chaste games of strip poker(and Steve couldn’t play worth a shit despite proclaiming himself a master at it). 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Robin. Can’t you give people some privacy?” Steve protested.

“We have shit to take care of, Steve!” Robin shouted back. Why did she have to care about their threesome? She told them to take a breather, not a moaner. 

“Okay, okay. Jesus. Just give me a few minutes.” Steve exhaled. He leaned back, allowing Jonathan to readjust his position at his side into a more comfortable one. 

Robin rolled her eyes and shut the door behind her. She wasn’t going to pry. Didn’t care enough. Those were Steve’s relationships, not hers. She leaned over the railing. It made her mad, nonetheless, that she really slept in the chair when she could’ve taken the guest room. Now that was some bullshit. 

Newly disgruntled, she hopped down the hardwood stairs. Footsteps followed soon after she reached the bottom. Robin stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, arms crossed as Nancy approached her. 

“I’m sorry about last night,” Nancy sighed. She leaned against the stairwell. “Before we headed upstairs, I got you a blanket.”

Robin flashed a smile. She stared down at the floor. “Thanks. I appreciate it. Um. Nancy, listen, I promise you those guys didn’t seem like they wanted to hurt anyone. Did I see them kill a guy in a lab jacket? Yes, however, who’s to say he wasn’t a fucking asshole?”

A strange bit of silence passed between them. Robin pressed her lips together, awaiting Nancy’s next move. Robin wouldn’t allow herself to be cornered.

“Do you have any siblings?” Nancy posed. 

And Robin expected that. She deflected her gaze to the floor. “No, but I think Eleven does. I think I have reason to suspect that the girl I met last night was her sister.” Robin managed finally to meet Nancy’s eyes. “Steve said it was always scientist guys after Eleven. He said they experimented on her powers. These guys had mind powers and numbers too. They _also_ seem to hate scientists. So there’s a common enemy there. If they’re looking for Eleven, it’s safe to say there’s a bigger threat beyond our scope.“

“As reasonable as that is, Robin, I don’t know if I can take that risk.” Nancy shook her head. “I want to be optimistic, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

Robin nodded. “Then you, Steve, and Jonathan should take Eleven and run. I’ll confront the mutants and tell them I don’t know where she is and neither do any of you.”

Nancy stepped forward. “That’s going to put you in danger. What if they can tell you’re lying?”

“I’ll just have to risk it,” Robin stated. 

Moved by this, Nancy took another step forward to give Robin a brief and fleeting hug. If Steve hadn’t been so head over heels for Nancy, Robin swore she probably would’ve fought Jonathan tooth and nail for her affections. Having watched Nancy’s relationship with Barbara Holland from a distance, Robin always had her suspicions that Nancy had been playing ball for both teams. But what Robin appreciated most was that Nancy could flip a switch between gentleness and fierceness like that. When put on the table for all to see, it was a nice sort of split in people. It simply wasn’t enough to have a go-getter smile. One also had to have that “I eat danger for breakfast” look in their eyes.

Thankfully, distracting her from these thoughts, Steve and Jonathan came downstairs, having a totally unrelated conversation.

“I can’t believe you still wear that shirt I got you,” Jonathan was saying. 

Steve paused at the bottom of the stairs to peer down at the Pink Floyd shirt he donned. Robin liked to tease him, noting that it was Newton's symbol first. “Yeah, well, it was a Christmas gift,” Steve said. “You’re still using the camera, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Jonathan replied.

A smile painted Steve’s lips in such adoration that Robin had never seen from him. He grinned down at the carpet as Jonathan moved past him to hold and kiss Nancy on the cheek. Steve glanced up, and instead of his smile fading as it would’ve before, it remained in place. Still shining.

After morning’s greetings were exchanged and a whole threesome was left untouched, Robin relayed the plan to Steve and Jonathan. Though he didn’t approve of Robin’s endangerment, he couldn’t offer any comfortable alternative. Nancy and Jonathan seemed to know the perfect place outside Hawkins besides Jonathan’s house so as to not endanger his family. They decided that after fall break ended, the trio would go looking for Robin if she wasn’t already at the Wheeler’s by sundown.

The only thing Robin needed from them before they set off was a ride to the quarry. It had only struck her in the middle of their conversation that she’d ended up leaving her bike behind. 

They packed a couple bags for the guys and set out in Steve’s Ford. Nancy would grab her things when they picked up Eleven, but only after dropping Robin off at the quarry. 

Their ride was mostly silent. Steve tried to make some noise by singing along to the radio. He really made Robin regret ever liking Madonna’s _Like A Virgin_. They thankfully had arrived at the quarry before he could start on _Take on Me’s_ chorus. Robin left Jonathan and Nancy with that beautiful serenade. 

She really hoped the best for them. After giving it more than a moment’s thought, it seemed their adventures in the night hadn’t really changed much. Although it appeared to have meant everything to Steve, Jonathan and Nancy’s demeanor hadn’t exactly changed. Sure, things were somewhat warmer from what she could tell, but a new awkwardness sprouted there too. Nancy seemed to want to avoid the whole thing the most. Robin supposed it could be hard on someone to have been with a guy, broke up with them, got with the guy he didn’t like, and then when it turns out he did like him—and very much so in _that way_ —they all slept together. All very complicated. All very messy. All very not her business. At the end of the day, Robin just wanted the best for Steve. 

In better news, despite everything, her bike was still there. 

But the body wasn’t.

Across the clifftop, all seemed just as it was two days prior. No blood, no body, no... dead guy, she supposed. That is, unless the mutants gathered it up in the van and did their clean-up elsewhere. 

Wandering over to the cliffside, Robin looked over the rushing waves far bellow. They always seemed louder to her than anyone else. It was almost as if she had her own rushing waves running through her mind. She only hoped the waves weren’t ruddied with the scientist’s corpse.

Straying from the cliffside and her pessimistic thoughts, Robin picked up her bike and examined it. Nothing was wrong as far as she could tell. She might’ve had to rename the Silver Strider into Mister Indestructible for its toils. Nah. Couldn’t do that. Silver Strider was here to stay. She’d been through too much with the Silver Strider to change his name all of a sudden. What kind of bike owner would do such a thing? She gave the steering mechanism a swift kiss and rode off, back onto the main road. 

Silver didn’t have a radio or protection from the rain, but he took her where she wanted to go. She wouldn’t have traded him for the world. He’d been with her for the formative years of her life into now. Even though he was largely inanimate, trading him for a car would’ve been like trading a pet hamster for a dog. Inherently, it was an upgrade, yes, but at what cost? Certainly an emotional one.

Riding Silver let her go at her own pace through Hawkins. Cars had speed limits to obey. Bikes didn’t. If she wanted to stop in front of the supermarket and watch the passersby and listen in on conversations between suburban moms (who were way too obsessed with the heterosexual love lives of their grade school kids), then she could do so. If she so desired, she could circle the same fire hydrant just to see how many times she could circle the same fire hydrant by the library without nearly tipping her bike over. Twenty-seven times, apparently. And if she absolutely had to, she could ride on the sidewalk. Like an asshole. 

That was usually pretty fun though.

Robin rode across the road and onto the sidewalk, turning into the Hawkins No-Tell Motel parking lot. She kicked her brake stand down behind a bush. Her chain was at home, and she made a mental reminder to start taking it with her. Silver wasn’t worth much, but it was better to be safe than sorry. 

God, everything last night was a haze. What was the number? Nine? No, that was that guy’s name. Was it... ten? It must have been, because that Nine guy was standing outside the door with a brass "10" above it, leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Robin wasn’t even going to begin to question how that piece of anatomy worked. 

He noticed her approach and flicked a couple ashes on the ground. She quickly realized that she couldn’t call him “Leather Jacket” anymore. He still wore a red scarf, but now donned a white button-up, which was crooked only because he’d started on the wrong button. 

“Kali’s been expecting you,” Nine greeted her. 

“Can you read my thoughts too, or just send messages?” Robin asked. She held her hands up for a moment. “Just curious.”

“No, it’s a fine inquiry. I can’t read your mind. I can only send messages,” Nine answered. 

After mentally screaming for a couple seconds and then watching for any reaction(he didn't react at all), Robin shot him a quick smile. She headed into the motel room. 

Hawkins’ No-Tell Motel gave you everything you expected from a motel. If you were expecting anything more than what they gave you, then you were, quite frankly, at the wrong motel. What you were looking for, in fact, was probably a hotel, in that case. The motel room offered a lingering stench of cigarettes, questionably stained beds, questionably stained carpets, and not to mention, questionably stained walls. It boasted two twin beds and grooves between them where they had been pushed together by clients, and pulled back apart by the janitors. There was also a bathroom. Not much to say about it except that it was questionably stained.

Kali sat in what most people hoped to be a relatively normal area. She sat on the desk with her feet meeting the seat of the chair beside it. From the stories Robin had heard from the other seniors, though, the desk also happened to be questionably stained, and she regretted to know exactly who had done it. Nowhere was safe from questionable stains. Not even the table lamp. Robin chose to simply stand around. 

“So. Where is she?” Kali demanded.

“Hello,” Robin said bluntly.

Taken aback, Kali blinked a couple times. “I’m sorry?”

“Usually when you greet somebody, you say ‘hello’ or ‘hi’ or ‘how are you today?’ Well, for your information, I’m doing fine. But you didn’t even bother to ask,” Robin pointed out.

Kali tilted her head down, glaring up at Robin. “Don’t get cheeky with me. I want to know what you know.” 

“And that is absolutely nothing. I don’t know anything. They didn’t know anything either. Apparently she ran off a while back. Jonathan’s really upset about it,” Robin said, scratching the back of her head. 

She wasn’t _really_ telling a lie. Eleven did try to run off back to Hawkins at some point. They had found her at Hopper’s old cabin. Robin really felt for the kid. Although, when Robin ran away because of her dead father problems, she didn’t even have an old location that her dead father once inhabited. But, that was a story to think about another day.

Kali shoved off from the desk. Robin hadn’t realized before, having only seen the girl seated, but Robin practically towered over Kali. Of course, her hair(which would probably make Steve “The Hair” Harrington look like an overstatement)added a couple inches. It was kind of cute. The purple tinge was a nice touch she also hadn’t noticed before. 

“Are you absolutely sure?” she pressed.

Robin blinked slowly, trying to snap herself out of her thoughts. “Absolutely.” Man, this was easier than she thought. Someone should’ve brought the Russians back for an actual challenge.

“Jane—er, Eleven?—is my sister. I want— I _need_ to find her.” Kali took a deep breath. She looked miserable, regretful, and somber all in one downward gaze. “I just... I promise you it’s nothing nefarious. Actually, it’s very far from it. I just... I just want to apologize to her. I treated her poorly when I first met her. I tried to use her anger against her father to inspire her to action against him. I realize now that it was never my place to do something like that.” 

Damn. She was right on the money. Showed what Nancy knew. Robin had no particular reason to distrust Kali, but for her own safety’s sake, it didn’t make sense to change her story just yet. She’d lead her around and see what she could find.

“Well, I don’t have any actual leads, but maybe we could check out that old lab.” Really, Robin just wanted to see it, and if Kali could give her some information, that would be the super cool sci-fi location to get it.

“The Hawkins National Laboratory?” Kali asked. Did she really need the confirmation? What other lab could there be nearby besides the one very clearly named for the town? No, her voice hid some slight trepidation. Something laid there in that lab that she didn’t want to confront.

Robin raised a brow of concern. “We don’t have to go. I just don’t know Eleven enough to—“

“We’ll go,” Kali stated quickly, like it stung her to say so. “I needed to make a pit stop there eventually anyway. I hope you don’t mind if we take Nine.”

Yes. Yep. Definitely. Robin nodded. That’s exactly what she wanted. That nightmare fuel coming along for the ride. She was looking forward to it, really. Mostly, she just wanted to know where the fuck he came from and if he came with a “return package to sender” sticker. 

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Nine entered the room, softly closing the door behind him. He paused, staring intently at Kali. Robin shuffled awkwardly, realizing now that he could talk to Kali without anyone else being privy. Made things just a little suspicious. Only a little though. As long as he wasn’t asking for permission to tear Robin’s guts out on the side of the road, she supposed it was fine. Nine, whether still speaking to Kali or not, crossed the room and produced a leather jacket from a suitcase by the rightmost bed. The leather jacket and otherwise grandpa attire made for a fun bit of contrast. It only made Robin happy to be able to call him Leather Jacket again in her inner monologue. She just hoped she didn’t slip up and call him that for real.

Kali produced a set of keys from her pocket and headed out. Leather Jacket followed, and Robin could’ve swore she heard something to the affect of “don’t try any funny business” come from him.  
  
The three piled into the van, which Robin assumed Kali owned, seeing as she had the driving pants in whatever relationship she had with Leather Jacket. Since Robin no longer happened to be concussed from her run-in with the cliff, Kali implored her to sit up front. Always did feel claustrophobic in the back of cars. When Robin couldn’t see what the driver saw, she tended to get a little paranoid. 

In the back of the van, Leather Jacket twitched and jumped as if engaged in a very hectic conversation with Kali. Robin thought she might’ve heard parts of it. Minor pieces like “can’t go back” and “don’t know what’s still there” and other variations of “don’t” and “can’t.” Robin turned to face him with an expression of pity, but he only became more panicked.

“You don’t understand what’s at that lab,” he said, glaring daggers into her.

“Steve said that thing’s shut down. Nobody’s there anymore. It got overrun with shit from the Upside Down, and now no-one’s there. And I’m pretty sure everything from there’s dead anyway,” Robin explained.

Leather Jacket burst out laughing. Robin wished she could’ve taken back whatever it was she said to set him off, because the guttural chortle combined with—goddamnit—those fucking teeth was not worth the exposition. Kali snickered, having stolen a glance at Robin’s disturbed sneer.

“You’re calling it the Upside Down? That’s rich! Sounds like something out of a movie!” Leather Jacket howled. 

“Yeah, alright, Grease.” That was his new name. Grease. Well, either that or Travolta, and she wasn’t sure that rolled off the tongue. Er, mind-tongue. Nevermind. Leather Jacket was fine.

“What’s Grease?” he asked.

“You know, about the guy who dresses in leather and the exchange student from Australia? She’s all prissy, and he’s all cool. They’ve got conflicting friend groups, so they split. Then, they realize they should bend to the other, and so now he’s the prep, and she’s the badass leather hottie.” Robin felt a tinge of red burn her ears. Something about the two made her feel like she could express herself more freely, but she couldn’t quite pin it down.

“I might like to catch that sometime,” Leather Jacket murmured. 

“It’s like, the greatest romance movie of all time,” Robin added, not that she thought either of the two would know about them. They seemed like vagabonds. No time for movies in their cases. At least they knew what a movie was.

“That was what I saw on my first date,” Kali said. She started up the van, paying no mind to Robin’s parted lips of shock. “Yes, I’ve dated. I’m not a hermit. Only once though, and her name was Dottie.”

Oh.

_Oh._

The van revved into life, and Kali set her gaze on Robin, curious, and very bemused. “But I’ve yet to hear a name out of you.” After a moment of Robin trying to speak but finding no words coming from her throat, Kali sighed exasperatedly. “And don’t give me some smartass response like, ‘you never asked’ because—“

“Robin.” 

Kali raised her brows, genuinely surprised. “Is there a last name to go with it?” 

“Buckley.” 

Robin found it hard to breathe now. It was so weird. It was all so weird. She never thought she’d meet anyone like her. Even if she was off-limits by proxy of being threatening to off Steve and probably her as well, this was cool. This was nice. So great to be in the presence of an attractive woman who she’d never have anything with. And this one was actually gay. Fuck. Lady Luck really wasn’t giving her any breaks.

“Alright then. I’m Kali Prasad.” Kali smiled, genuinely, softly, sweetly. “It’s nice to meet you,” (and her name came even softer, more delicate on her tongue,) “Robin.” 

“It’s...” Robin took an unsure breath. “... nice to meet you too.” Officially.

Leather Jacket stuck his hand between the seats. “Nine,” he said simply. 

Goddamnit. Nine. Okay. Robin shook his hand, repeating his name aloud. It was going to be really hard to not call him Leather Jacket, but she would make the effort. Only because he was polite enough to shake her hand. She almost felt endeared.

Kali pulled out of the motel and onto the main road. Robin would’ve felt compelled to give directions if she actually knew where anything was. The Hawkins Laboratory felt mythical, like Mt. Olympus—or probably more accurately, Tartarus. If an illusion-weaver and a monster-mouthed man hadn’t confirmed its existence, she might’ve just resigned the location to her deepest nightmares. 

Yes, she’d seen a giant spider-thing from another dimension destroy her workplace. She’d seen it take over the minds of other people. She’d seen it kill. But. It was only a fever dream now. Now, she questioned whether it was even real. And when she was with Steve, yes, it was real. When she was anywhere else, no, it wasn’t. That was the narrative, and she was a rook. Not a pawn, never a pawn. Wasn’t like she had none of the information. She had enough to move in a couple directions. Yes, or no. Real, or fake. She hadn’t yet decided on the story she was going to tell herself for years to come. 

All she really knew was that the Hawkins Laboratory was the source of all evil. So, very Tartarus. However, Eleven emerged from that cocoon of horror, so what could be said about her? Well, she wasn’t some antichrist. Who was, then?

“So, who was that guy in the lab jacket from yesterday?” Robin asked. Couldn’t ask any of those other questions. Too existential for a new group of friends. Wait— could they be friends? Acquaintances, maybe.

“He was the one who did this,” Nine growled, pointing to his mouth. He glared out of the window. “One of the Hawkins ‘visionaries’. Thought they could solve their little other dimensional pest problem by creating a pest of their own.”

“I’m sorry.” Robin cringed at herself. She almost let him get away yesterday. 

“It’s...” He paused and sighed. “It’s not your problem.” Nine began to stare down at the floor. “I haven’t been back here since they shut the lab down, though.”

Robin nodded somberly. “Did you live here too?” she asked Kali.

Kali hummed. “Not always. London to start. Then, I was taken here as a child.”

“That’s quite a trip. Sorry you had to end up in the heart of the south,” Robin laughed breathlessly. 

“It’s not so bad.” Kali smirked slightly. “Your little town’s got some charm.”

Robin snorted. “Where?”

Seriously. Where? If you wanted charm out of Hawkins, you really had to wring it out of that solitary little gazebo in the park. Had to wring it out to the max. Wouldn’t have to wring it so much if dumb boys didn’t tear into the structure in an attempt to mark their week-long relationships into infinity. Robin still liked to sit there, alone with her thoughts. It had a nice view of the whole park. Anybody could appreciate the life around it from any of the seats. Felt good to sit back and enjoy the greenery. And that was the high for the charm meter, striking a solid six.

“Well you’ve got... you’ve got that little store. With the... with the pink gumdrop on the sign. That cute little mom and pop shop,” Kali tried.

“Oh, yeah.” Robin looked out of the window. They were now leaving the central town area of Hawkins. “We called it the sugar shop. I used to get candy in there off my allowance. Like, uh... Red Vines, usually.” But Robin didn’t like Red Vines. Actually, Tammy Thompson did, and unfortunately for Robin, no amount of sugary bribes would ever get her into Tammy’s inner circle, much less her _inner circle_.

“I’m more of a Twizzlers person myself,” Kali said after some time. 

“Both pale in comparison to Skittles!” Nine yelled at the top of his mental voice.

“Oh my god, Nine, you’d shatter glass if you were any louder!” Kali yelled back.

“If you’re not confident in your love for Skittles, you can’t be confident in anything else!” he exclaimed. Robin suspected it was only to expand his channel.

“You know, I thought that arcade looked nice too,” Kali mentioned.

“Oh, Palace?” Robin chuckled, nervously combing a hand through her hair. “I pretty much lived there in middle school. Mom said it was the first place to ever have an arcade cabinet. My parents actually met there. It used to be a laundromat where my dad used to work...” Robin hummed, twiddling her thumbs. “So how’d you two meet?” 

“Oh, uh... just over that guy you saw me... shoot.” Nine rubbed the back of his neck. “Kali’s been on her little revenge tour for a couple years now. We ran into the same target and decided to partner up. Uh— not in that way. I don’t...” Nine shook his head. Wherever he was going, he decided to turn back.

Kali took her eyes off the road for a moment. “Not sure what Nine’s telling you, but I should mention that we did technically inhabit the same lab for a good five years of my life at least. Even then, we were kept separate. Most of us were. Jane—or Eleven, if that’s how you knew her—and I just so happened to be allowed to play together.”

“Ok. I’m hearing Eleven and Nine,” Robin began, “But what about you? If it’s not a big deal or anything, what’s your number?”

Kali elicited no verbal response. Instead, she took one hand off the wheel to give Robin her wrist. “008” branded her skin in bold, robotic lettering. Kali retracted her arm after Robin had gotten her eyeful.

“Some prefer their numbers. Some don’t. I personally chose to rename myself altogether,” Kali said. “Goddess of death. How’s that for a name?”

“It’s pretty cool. My dad just really liked Batman and Mom went with it, I guess.” Robin shrugged.

“Batman is nice,” Nine mumbled. “Who doesn’t like Batman?” He peered down at the floor of the car, genuinely trying to figure out someone who wouldn’t like Batman.

“My turn for questions. How’d you get involved in our little Hawkins hidden history?” Kali smirked. 

“Totally by accident,” Robin answered almost a little too defensively. “ _Maybe_ a hint of choice,” she admitted. She exhaled. “I guess it all started when Eleven ran away from the lab, which snowballed into some Russians trying to send messages back and forth about a lab hidden beneath the place where I worked. I happened to be able to decode the messages. Only because I’m smarter than the rest of my friends." She bit her lip. She was just gonna chalk that one up to a Freudian slip. "Uh, Steve, a couple other friends, and I infiltrated the base and found out they were trying to open up the Upside Down after Eleven sealed it last year.”

“Damn! Jane’s that strong now? I remember when the most she could do was throw people against a wall!” Nine laughed a proud laugh. It became hard not to appreciate the remnants of familial connection these two carried about them.

“That’s what I’ve been telling you, Nine!” Kali yelled back at him, giving him a taste of his own headache. 

Nine shook his head. He smiled at Kali. Or at least, she thought it was a smile. Probably a smile, yeah. Whatever it was, she smiled back. 

And damn. What a smile that was.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im the who that doesnt like batted man actually


	3. on the run.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin realizes she's in this for the long haul. Kali just wants a memento.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may be wondering what my favorite song on dsotm is.
> 
> well its not this one. i actually forgot it existed for a really long time. but i tried to make a good chapter out of it so theres that
> 
> (anyway go stream dsotm; its only like 44 minutes of your life and that weed isnt gonna smoke itself man.)
> 
> ((also, i had started writing this pre-Black Friday's release, but i can safely say Ethan Green/Robert Marion is also a really good faceclaim for Nine))

Approaching the lab ended up being an arduous task. Backroads and dirt paths led them finally to the impending government building. Robin had never been on such a rocky journey, and she wasn’t entirely in favor of going back on it. Though, she couldn’t help but feel selfish and guilty when she happened to catch a troubled look on Kali or Nine’s faces. It became all too clear a little too quickly that whatever traumas laid here were going to be difficult to bury again. When they pulled up to the booth anticipating the building, Nine got out to remove the barrier a little too roughly and ended up tearing it off completely. He threw it to the side and stomped back into the van. This served to remind Robin that she was not dealing with normal people. They were, at least, normal people who had the capacity to kill her and make it look like a savage or sweet accident.

Parking right in front, Kali took her keys and initiated the exit of the van. She popped the trunk, handed them both flashlights, and took one for herself out of a pack of six. And despite Kali and Nine marching into the building, Robin couldn’t help but pause. Her eyes were drawn upward. Hawkins Laboratory towered over them, dark and looming, like an angry god frozen in carbonite. Thousands of columns and rows of windows shimmered thanks to the full moon’s blinding white glow. Yet, nothing shone as brightly as Polaris, hanging solemn in the night sky. Robin took one last look at her and then ventured into the abandoned lab.

Mahogany stained the floor of the lobby. A broom laid, halfway out of its closet, exposed and lonely. Robin felt herself move to it as if on autopilot. She knelt. Her fingertips would at least have brushed it if not for Kali shouting her name. Robin whipped around, still crouched. Kali beckoned her through the lobby doors to come into the hall. 

Nine led the quiet charge with Kali and Robin trailing behind, side by side. Kali kept her eyes open, probably for Eleven. Robin couldn’t help but feel guilty, and so she tried her best to pretend like she was looking. But she wasn’t, really. All that interested her were the numbers on the doors they passed, the splatters on the wall, and the fact that no one was going to explain any of it. There was no point to looking for someone who wasn’t there. So why not look for someone who could be there?

Robin didn’t know who that would be. But, it sure would’ve been cool as hell to find someone just hiding out in the lab. 

So when she slowed herself enough to examine the plaques and signs at her own pace, one thing intrigued her above the rest. Project Montauk? Ugh, next. Project E.T.? Give her a break. Project Rainbow—more like Project Rain-go home and find a better project name. But Project Scorched Earth? Now that sounded cool as hell. 

Nine and Kali turned a corner, leaving Robin behind. Normally, she wouldn’t have opened a door that said “Do Not Open,” (oh who was she kidding? she totally would) but this room was completely frozen over. No sign of life whatsoever. Anything in here had to be dead. Cold and lifeless. Perfect place to ogle around.

Next to the door, the card swipe looked to have been melted off. Though, whoever attempted to liquefy it completely failed about halfway down. Maybe someone was trying to get in. Or it was just an accident with some pyrotechnics. Fourth of July went different for everybody, and she’d known that better than anyone. Whatever the case, Robin was grateful for it because that would’ve been the only lock keeping her from the contents of the room. 

It happened to be the one of the only rooms she’d seen thus far that didn’t have a blood stain anywhere near it. If in the past there had been monsters on the loose, no one dared step foot inside this room to escape. This wouldn’t have been so out of place if it hadn’t been for the previously mentioned lack of locks.

Breathing felt nigh impossible. Though it wasn’t an airlock, there was a distinct shortage of oxygen in the room. Robin held her flashlight out in front of her as if she was wielding an epee. Nothing was out to get her. There was nothing in the room. In fact, it looked like an Antarctic base, with spirals of ice coating the floors and walls, crawling up the machinery, and completely coating the large glass tube jutting upward from the central computer. 

Still in a fencing mindset, Robin shuffled toward the center. She allowed her flashlight to roam over the technology. It was then she realized that she had no idea what any of this was. 

But there was a big red button. There was only one thing to do with a big red button.

So, she pressed it.

Wasn’t like it was going to do anything. The laboratory had been at a loss for power since it got shut down by the government. So, phooey. Whatever, though. It was cool in the moment.

Now she had to go play catch-up with Kali and Nine. Retracing her steps wasn’t very hard. She’d seen the others round the right corner, so she picked up the pace, and met them at a couple elevators, mid-conversation. Or, rather, Kali spoke, and Nine responded mentally.

“No, you can’t just pry the doors open,” Kali said to him. Pause. “Okay, let’s say you pull that metal apart, what then?” Pause. She became erratic. “No! That is not the issue! The issue is no electric!” Pause. Now she was frustrated beyond her wits. “I’m not going to find a generator just so you can ride an elevator. We are taking the stairs.” Glancing behind Nine, she finally noticed Robin making her best attempt at a furtive approach. “Oh, hey. Lost you for a second there. Where were you?”

“I just got distracted, is all. Thought I heard a whimper,” Robin lied. She shrugged. No big deal. Play it cool. “But it was just some metal pipes creaking, y’know. Old place, I guess.”

“Alright, just stay close from now on. I don’t get a good feeling about this place, and neither does Nine.” Kali sighed as if she knew the weight of the world would soon fall from her shoulders. She swallowed a bit of pride and cast her glance elsewhere. “I have to get something from the Rainbow Room. I haven’t sensed Jane’s presence, anyway.” 

“Sensed?” Robin inquired.

Nine nodded. “When you’re around someone with strong mind powers, and if you really focus, you can feel a bit of static in the air. It’s not quite tangible, you know. Just there.” He shook his hand above his head as if the static were something of a miasma. 

“How would you differentiate it? You all have mind powers,” Robin noted. She leaned against the elevator wall. She liked to make herself seem interested in the conversation, but also ready to dip at any time so that the other party made an effort not to bore her. Didn’t work very often. Actually, she didn’t talk to a lot of people.

“Everybody has a signature. Jane’s is deep ringing, like when you’re at the bottom of a pool. Nine’s is like an annoying bee constantly buzzing in your ear,” Kali said. Nine rolled his eyes in an overexaggerated fashion, prompting Kali to elbow him in the ribs. 

He leaned over to hold his side, one eye clenched in pain. “Fuck you. You know what, Kali? You sound like nails on a fucking chalkboard!” he complained.

“ _Oh!_ You don’t even know what that sounds like!” she admonished him.

Done with the conversation, Kali turned her back on him and began walking forward. He sneered after her. And in the meantime, in the harsh silence they’d created, Robin stood, patiently waiting for her signature. Nine’s was easy and accurately pinpointed by Kali. But hers... 

Nine gave Robin a puzzled stare. “You look like a kid on Christmas morning. All bug-eyed. What’s up?” he asked quietly.

Her breath hitched when she realized. Robin dashed forward and stopped just before the first junction. Though the puzzle hadn’t had the difficulty of the Russian code, Robin’s heart reared, ready to spring from her chest all the same if she didn’t release the information from the floodgates of her mind.

“Rustling leaves!”

Kali whipped around. Her eyes wavered, looking for an explanation to what would’ve otherwise been a nonsensical combination of words.

“You sound like rustling leaves!” Robin clarified.

Closing her eyes, Kali flashed a smirk. “I must say, I didn’t expect that.”

Robin let out a chuckle of satisfaction. “So what’s mine then?” she asked in jest. 

Kali sent an odd glance her way but continued walking onward. Robin’s sense of humor tended to be hit or miss. Still, she couldn’t help but feel the look was disconcerting. It wasn’t one of confusion or bad humor. But, maybe she was overthinking it now. A smack on the back alerted her to Nine’s presence as he passed her. She followed behind him.

Then, out of the blue, and once Nine had caught up to her, Kali turned to him, saying under her breath, “Yes. I’m positive.” Nine grimaced deeply. She appeared dead serious about whatever his question had been. Especially because she then said, “If push comes to shove, yes.”

And at that point, Robin realized she’d let her guard down. Could anyone blame her? For a moment, the two mutants gave off such a cool and laidback impression. But at the core of their being, they were powerful, and they knew it. Now, Robin began to question her surroundings. Any of it could have been fake just like that fire. Even if Kali didn’t kill her by praying on her paranoia and digging her psychological grave, Nine reminded her more and more of a face-hugger from Alien, and therein came the ticking time-bomb of when he would finally tire of her and rip her face off. Sure, they were pleasant and peaceful now, but one misstep and no one would ever see her again. 

Their journey onward led them up ten flights of stairs, down two righthand intersections, and finally to a room with a rainbow on the door. Kali fidgeted with the door handle, but found it locked. To her upper right was a card slot. If it was hacked, one could get in. Alas, one would need electric to do such a thing in the first place. 

“Fuck!” Kali shouted, kicking the very closed and non-opening door. 

“What did you need from there?” Robin asked.

“I don’t mean to offend, but it’s really something I’d like to keep to myself.” Kali ran a hand through her hair. Her golden eyes shook as she stressed. She ran another hand through her hair as she paced in front of the door. Pacing. Pacing. More pacing. Bored of being still, Robin exhaled loudly. Kali snapped her head up. “I didn’t want to suggest this, but if you’re so restless, why don’t you take Nine and go turn on the generator? It won’t be an easy jog.”

“Who died and made you queen?” Robin snapped back. Kali fell silent, choosing to squint in response. Robin threw her hands up. “Well! It’d be easier if I knew where it was.”

“South end of the building, out through the vivarium, and down a long dirt path. It’s in a sort of metal shed,” Nine said. He cast her downward look. “One time, we had a subject try to escape the lab by short-circuiting the whole place. I went with a lab hand and my... uh...” He fidgeted with his pinky finger. It looked perfectly fine to Robin. “...well, long story short, we went to turn it back on. So, I know where it is.”

Kali raised a brow. When Nine turned slightly toward her, she whispered, “Right.” Then, she crossed her arms, leaning back against the door. “You and Nine need to turn the backup generator on. I’ll stay here and wait for the room to open. We’ll meet up in the lobby.”

For as much as Robin’s distrust in Kali mounted with her every strange glance and whispering word, she really didn’t have a choice but to go along with it. What else could she do? Storm off and make the trek back to Hawkins? It’d take the whole night at the quickest. That’s to say nothing of the bears. God, the bears. 

Fate tugged at her strings like a puppeteer of bad choices. These bad choices, she realized, were not entirely hers. They weren’t bad choices though, because there were no good choices to begin with. Either die or possibly die. No other options. And for all the strings holding her up at the moment, leading her down the stairs, following Nine’s every step, she got the strange feeling that she was the only one who truly believed in their presence. 

So she let herself walk behind Nine, walk into the vivarium, walk under a notably Mind Flayer-esque piece of architecture holding the skylight together, run down a muddy path from the drizzle that just began, watch as Nine kicked the surprisingly large shed’s door in, and follow him in. And there they were, perfectly centered, perfectly unprotected, and perfectly easy to start. Granted, no one would’ve expected this shed to have housed these backups, but it was still terribly convenient. 

Nine took his time, stooping over each one to pull the recoil start. There happened to be about ten or so by Robin’s count. Maybe more. Robin didn’t care to count really. She leaned in the doorframe, vigilant for whatever might decide to stroll in. Not that she was going to do anything about it. The real manpower here laid in Nine’s freaky anatomy. And that revolver if he still had it. Wouldn’t matter though, he was occupied. If something grabbed her from the woods, he probably wouldn’t know.

One time, Steve offered to teach her how to shoot a gun. No one in the group had a license to shoot or carry, but he’d learned a couple things from Nancy over the summer and wanted to impart this knowledge onto Robin. She wasn’t feeling a gun for a main weapon though. Maybe an axe or a gardening hoe. Something with some real sharpness to it. Something unexpected. Something that said—“don’t mess with that lesbian anymore, she’s armed, dangerous, and not taking any of your shit.” Swords were hard to come by, but even a rake would be a cool substitute. 

As for now though, she was defenseless against no immediate threat, standing against the doorframe, watching a man start up a bunch of generators. Nine performed his duty so diligently. A rush and a sweat had come over him. But for all the distraction of the job, he appeared to be troubled by the whole task. 

Robin wondered how long it would be until he spilled his guts about his and Kali’s real plans. Everything came up bubbling on the surface. It wouldn’t be long until someone said the wrong thing—said too much. Until then, Robin kept a watchful eye on every move Nine made. 

After some time, Robin noticed the lights in the lab begin to shine. A surge of accomplishment rushed through her all the same as plugging in the Christmas tree. She would’ve been remiss not to do a slight hop at the sight. There was no “we did it” to be said as it was all Nine, but at the very least, she was there for moral support.

Nine waltzed out of the shed gaily and with a bit of hop in his step as well. Together they danced back up the umber dirt road like they belonged to a low-budget _Wizard of Oz_ , reveling in the accomplishment. But, when they reached the vivarium, Nine unexpectedly quieted and snatched her by the shoulders behind a particularly large and dead Venus flytrap. It didn’t bode well, and Robin was sure if it were alive, he’d have likely tossed her in and made it look like an accident. 

Because, if she were reading the room right, this was probably where she died. His grip wasn’t very strong, which was slightly reassuring, but it held her terrified there nonetheless.

“Sorry—I’m not gonna kill you, just hear me out.” He paused as if waiting for a response from Robin beyond a mortified blink. He pressed on, “Kali’s getting a memento right now. I require something a little bit more than sentimental, and I need your help getting it. Kali’d murder me if she knew. You said you’ve decoded Russian language, right? So then, is it too much of a stretch for you to figure out computer commands?” Nine asked, voice somehow breathy despite being telepathic.

Yep. This was how she died. Fucking up because she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Just another couple of bad choices forcing her to pick between them.

“Of course. Of course,” Robin shakily replied. What the fuck else could she say to a man that could rip her face off?

Now she asked herself how Steve would have fared in her position. He probably would’ve gotten his shit kicked in the moment he opened his mouth. He wouldn’t have done a thing for them without a fight. Kali’s suppressive stare might’ve been enough to make him submit to her whims, but Robin was sure Steve wouldn’t even hesitate to sock Nine in the jaw—or... uh... jaws... 

Or maybe that was just how she really felt. Steve, more often than not, tended to act as her Id. Hell, he was just so brazen and foolhardy. Fuck if he knew what kind of trouble his actions would get him in. He did things for the sake of doing them without ever thinking of the consequences. In a way, Robin envied his state of being. In another, Robin enjoyed her ability to plan ahead, even if, admittedly, she didn’t realize she was doing it.

When they came back to the Scorched-Earth room, Robin had barely noticed. Her gaze had only been roaming the endless white tile for the past few minutes. If not for the freezing temperature in the room, she would’ve kept walking until she ran into Nine.

Nine hovered over the central control beneath the frosted over capsule. His eyes flickered between the newly flashing multicolored buttons. It became increasingly clear that he had no idea what was going on, and that he was totally relying on Robin to do something here. 

“I just need you to open this capsule for a moment. Only a moment. Then, you can close it back up,” Nine ordered. He then promptly decided to go fuck off in a corner, specifically the one by the door. 

“What’s in it?” Robin asked. Only natural. Besides, she needed him to talk while she figured out a way to get past him if things turned ugly. 

But Nine was silent on the matter, choosing to fix his stare upon the frost. Robin took that as a sign not to ask anything else.

On the central control was a screen which she managed to turn on. After a few seconds of searching, she got ahold of the “open” command, and the screen asked for a password. Fucking hell.

She slammed her fists on the control board. That didn’t do anything, but it felt good. Nine turned to her with mild interest.

“What’s the holdup?” he asked.

“Need a password,” Robin answered as she attempted a few obvious ones. Just the good old “1234567” and “Hawkins” to start. 

Nine furrowed his brow. “Well, what’s _your_ computer password?” 

Robin squinted at him. What did that have to do with anything?

Catching the hint, Nine shrugged. “Just suggesting...”

To be honest, she still didn’t know why her family had a password on their computer at all. Not like anyone was going to go searching for some hidden files or search history. They could’ve because Robin definitely had a lot to hide, but they wouldn’t. No one was interested in dealing with the viruses Robin had unleashed upon the computer thanks to some sites promising some very titillating jpegs. The internet was thankfully the one place of solitude Robin had from her parents, who otherwise, would’ve been all in her business about every pixel she’d ever seen.

Because the computer was meant to be a family endeavor—though it ended up being moved to Robin’s room for “school use”—the password was made to be easily remembered. Just her name and birthday. Nothing could be easier than that.

On Nine’s suggestion, she typed it in. In the case that it didn’t work, Robin began formulating a plan for finding out who was involved in Scorched-Earth. From there, tracking down his office somewhere in the building. Then, uncovering some semblance of a family. At that point, she’d have enough information to type in a bunch of names and birthdays to go along with them. Maybe even an important instance in his life. All while avoiding the eye of Kali and hoping she didn’t just leave them in the middle of the lab with god knows what that could start running around with the power back on. 

But she didn’t need that plan because “Robin1967” worked. It fucking worked. 

What were the odds that the scientist working here had the same name for a daughter? And she had the same birth year? Maybe it wasn’t his daughter, per se. Or _their_ daughter. Could’ve been a woman. And the name could’ve belonged to a son. A sister. A brother. An uncle. An aunt. A wife. Maybe it was a wedding date. Maybe they just liked Batman! Or birds! Or that song by Bobby Byrd! And _fuck fuck fuck fuckity fucking hell_ , this was not happening. There was no fucking getting around it. She was inexplicably linked to this fucking hellhole and there was no out. No way to deny it. Fate just strung her up with the rest of the Hawkins Lab kids and left them laying on the floor to get their strings tangled up together. 

Robin swallowed, hoping her mental breakdown wasn’t visible to Nine on the physical or mental plane. He offered only silence and a hopeful look. It was time to press the big red button, he signaled with those big amber eyes that she wouldn’t have noticed had she not been looking for a sight to distract herself with.

Only one thing to do with a big red button that was now flashing. 

So she pressed it. And pressed it again. And again. 

But nothing happened. 

“I don’t understand. I got the password right. Beyond all belief, I somehow got the password right. Shouldn’t this be working?” Robin hyperventilated. 

While true that she’d only known the man for a couple days, she couldn’t help but feel every piece of emotion Nine stabbed himself with in the moment: Disbelief. Disappointment. That look of searching for an answer in an area where none exists. Anguish. Longing, even. 

His trembling fingers extended over the frosted glass as if another hand might come to place its across the way. His eyes did a melancholy dance between the lack of a hand to meet his and the control center that proved to be worthless. He then cast all his emotions away except for the longing. Always strong, the longing.

Using his pinky, Nine wrote a backwards message in the frost. ”I’m sorry,” it said, letters dripping with the heat of the touch. Satisfied with his lovingly crafted couple of words, he left the room. Robin followed suit. No point in waiting around for something to happen. 

Their destination was the lobby, but the gentle hum of elevators in use directed them back to the area where Robin had caught up with the mutants before. Kali exited the one on the right, eyes fixed on her wrist. Her fingers held onto what looked like one of those homemade rubber band friendship bracelets. This one was designed with all the colors of the rainbow. Robin deftly averted her gaze when Kali caught her staring. 

Kali shot a pointed look at Nine. “Yes, I got what I was looking for. We can leave.” 

“Good, this place is giving me the creeps,” Robin commented as she stretched her arms. 

“As it should,” Kali sneered. 

She stormed off in a huff. Nine stood beside Robin, watching as she walked off. 

“What got into her?” Robin asked as politely as she could manage. 

“Just this place in general. Every hall is a walk down memory lane for her.” Nine peered miserably over his shoulder. “And the good memories here are zero to none.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It doesn’t surprise me that she spent so long in the Rainbow Room. If she had anything good here, it was all in there. Her and Jane... you could hear their laughter from almost anywhere in the building. They really didn't deserve to be split up like they were...”

With that said, he walked on. Robin supposed she should head out alongside him before they left her there. 

And she could’ve kept on past the last intersection before the lobby, straight ahead. Though Nine pushed on forward, Robin couldn’t. She couldn’t. She had to stop. Her heart nearly stopped too. Eyes bore into her soul—eyes she couldn’t see but knew were on her. She turned her head briskly to the right. He was a man. The man stood across the hall. She would’ve been remiss to say she could make out any distinct features. He was tall. He was rugged. He wore only a tank and boxers. If she hadn’t seen Nine walk on, she would’ve thought it was him, possibly playing a prank on her. But when this mysterious man walked on, Robin immediately drove it from her memory. She knew exactly what she wasn’t telling Kali or Nine.

Why complicate matters more? They were already all pissed off and shaken up. She’d tell them another day, if she knew them another day. Because hopefully—and big emphasis on _hopefully_ —she’d never have to see them again. 

Sure, they’d be hard to forget, and there were a lot of things about them that she still wanted to know, but at what cost? She’d never not be paranoid with them around, just waiting for them to finally strike her down just like Mr. Lab Jacket the day before.

No, she wouldn’t delay their leave from Hawkins. They needed to go and take their frightening selves somewhere else. The longer they stayed, the longer the danger stayed too. If this other guy ended up being a threat, Kali and Nine didn’t need to be involved. Robin and Steve were just fine as a fighting duo. And... as a quartet with Jonathan and Nancy...

God, she couldn’t wait to tell Steve about this, but she really hoped they didn't have to be involved. Sure, they were all chummy, but she couldn't help but appreciate the solitude of sharing a cold one with Steve. Maybe if she had her own group, she wouldn't feel this way. But Kali and Nine? They weren't it. There was no way a happy ending would come for the three of them. 

When she finally found her way back to the lobby, Nine and Kali were waiting. Robin felt a smile tug at her lips. It was a pleasant surprise that they weren’t the cold, heartless beings that her thoughts had led her to believe they were. 

The drive back to civilization wasn’t as awkward as she’d thought. Kali ended up sharing how she’d met Eleven outside of the lab once, and how she’d lost her. At one point, out of a sort of sympathy for her story, Robin’s hand brushed over Kali’s wrist. She moved it quickly of course, though it remained between them. Fuck. What was she thinking?

Kali caught her eye on the offhand glance and Robin kept her view there. In those eyes. Those dark, dark eyes. They wouldn’t have stood out if not for the near-black purple eyeshadow and eyeliner around them. Yet, just as on the first night she’d seen Kali, Robin noticed an alluring shimmer of gold flickering inside them. But maybe that was just her imagination.

Oddly enough, Robin started to see what people saw in Steve. Hairdos could really make or break a person. While Steve had cultivated his style like a rather everyday topiary, Kali had grown out an avant garde piece of art, a style befitting only someone as punk as her. The buzzed side made her hair out to be a waterfall—or maybe a paintbrush, dipped in a swatch of purple. It was perfectly unique. Maybe even attractively so.

It wasn’t like Robin didn’t know she was swimming in a pit full of vipers. At any moment, Kali could’ve been altering her vision. Nothing had to be real at the moment. Nine was dozing off in the backseat. But was he really? Maybe Kali was making her see that. No way to know for sure. Yet, Robin really wanted to trust her. _Really_ wanted to, for some reason. 

They weren’t so different, she and Kali. Both were outcasts in their own and in their shared ways. Perhaps that alone is what kept her in Kali’s good graces. That is to say, Kali hadn’t disposed of her yet. Yet. Or maybe never, as that deep gut feeling was telling Robin. 

Whatever the case, Robin laid back in her seat, watching the road out of the windshield, careful not to start staring again. Dark trees flew by on either side. It would be another hour until they reached Hawkins proper. Nothing to do but sleep. Maybe she’d start a new conversation. Not much to talk about. Not much she felt comfortable asking. She’d just resign herself to the quiet and

“I’d like to apologize, by the way.”

Robin raised her brows. Fuck. She was so lost. “What?” she mumbled.

“Apologize about being so... bitchy back there, y’know.” Kali sighed. “I’m usually not. It’s just... a lot’s happened since I last saw Jane, and I really didn’t like being back at the lab.” 

Fuck fuck fuck. Robin bit her lip. She really shouldn’t have suggested

“And before you say it—no, it’s not your fault that we went back there. If I didn’t want to go, I wouldn’t have hesitated to tell you ‘no.’” Kali held Robin with a patient look as they approached a red light. “You’re fine, honestly. So you can stop looking like a panicked chihuahua in the company of a rottweiler, okay?” She grabbed Robin’s hand, giving it a brief squeeze.

Robin could only blink at the show of affection. Everything in the lexicon was suddenly lost on her. Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered except the fact that she had just run into the strangest people she’d ever had the good graces to meet.

And she thought she might’ve liked one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get used to the lab we'll be back. when? soon
> 
> and again.
> 
> and again.
> 
> and ag


	4. time.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin spends a lot of time with Kali and Nine. Nine has some issues with how demogorgons are classified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> like if u flinch every time this song starts.
> 
> seriously though, this is a great song and definitely in my top three (out of. like, ten) of the album. this chapter is VERY long because it's a long song. in hindsight i probably shouldve done a short Kali POV from "breathe(in the air)." as a reference to the breathe reprise but oops! all robin POV
> 
> (this chapter introduces Robin's parents. you can hc them to look like whoever lol. i personally picture them as Uma Thurman circa Kill Bill(not just bc of the obvious but bc that's honestly one of my favorite movies of all time and i've always liked her) and Bill Hader circa Barry. yes i know maya's dad is actually ethan hawke but well,  
> you'll see.)

A collage of clocks rang throughout the house, bringing Robin out of her slumber like a fishing hook piercing a carp right in the chest, reeling them out of the sea of dreams.

But honestly. Damn. Ok. Word. She was up. 

If Samson owned one more fucking clock, she would actually lose her fucking mind. There were many a moment where Robin considered taking one of the cuckoo clocks out back and making a Lenny out of it. Except she wouldn’t be telling that clock about the rabbits. After so many sleepless mornings, it didn’t deserve the peace it took from her.

It still baffled her how much her parents had let her get away with. She came in at one in the morning last night; yet, they stayed awake in the living room, waiting for her to stumble in. She excused that she was hanging out with Steve—and if she ever stopped “forgetting” to get Steve’s number, that excuse was going to start falling flat. They only let her hang around so long and sleep over at Steve’s so much because they knew that relationship wouldn’t amount to anything.

Inside her house, she could be free to fly her flag whenever she felt like. She’d gotten the talk so so long ago. Sometimes she regretted learning the information her mother dumped on her. She didn’t need to know that her stepfather was bisexual and participating in polyamory. Didn’t need to know that at all. All she needed to know was that her mother accepted her—not some weird reason why other than because she loved her. All the other information served to make interactions between Samson and her fourteen-year-old self a little more awkward than they already had been for a while. 

Having cocooned herself in her comforter at some point in the middle of the cold night, Robin dragged herself out of bed, and with herself, all her sheets. She inched herself toward her closet. Fuck, she needed some hands to open this thing. She stood and loosed herself of her shell. Only for closet purposes. If she wasn’t immediately skipping home to go out, she probably would’ve hopped around the house for as long as possible. 

Closets. Loved closets. She also hated closets. Some closets opened with a simple turn of the knob. Some closets slid back. Some closets didn’t have a door. Hers had doors that folded in, and if she had the magic ability, she would’ve laid a thousand-year curse on whoever came up with the idea of a folding closet door. Oh, and their family, too. No mercy here. 

Looking at her hanging wardrobe, she wondered if she really needed the closet in the first place. Not much inhabited it, and she could’ve easily put everything there in a dresser. Hanging there on the pole were a couple flannel jackets of two different shades of red, an old tweed coat that once belonged to her father, and a leather jacket with a rip up the side of the right arm which had been stitched up in red thread.

Robin took the leather jacket. There was a lot of history in this jacket. On a particularly rainy day, Robin decided to go biking. She had taken one of Samson’s jackets simply because she disliked him and would’ve rather gotten his clothes wet than hers. She’d just gotten the training wheels taken off. Always wobbly, that first time. Then, she ended up biking off a thankfully small cliff at the quarry. The whole jacket had gotten muddy, but the arm was ripped nearly beyond repair. Upon coming home, she realized it would’ve been terrible to regift this jacket to Samson. So, she washed it and hung it up in her own closet. Years later, after a couple days of sewing in home ec, Robin got the jacket back out and stitched the arm up again. Thanks to red being the only color of thread she had, Samson never recognized it, thinking he might’ve lost the jacket on a date. For this reason, a feeling of rebelliousness always swept through her as she put the jacket on.  
  
After putting on a fair pair of jeans and a garishly patterned shirt, Robin donned the leather jacket and exited her room. Just before her door, she grabbed a pair of marked up converse and hopped into them as she moved down the hall. 

She came to a fork in the road. Either she could leave the house through the living room’s front door and risk losing a couple bucks to hunger, or make a pit stop to the kitchen and have a terribly awkward conversation—levels of which varied depending on the inhabitants. Fuck it. Money deserved to be spent on random gas station shit. No point in having to grab a loaf of bread from the bakery when she had toast at home.

Robin braved the oncoming storm and entered the kitchen. Samson sat at the small roundtable in the corner, reading the Hawkins Independent. Her mom hadn’t gotten up yet. This would be even worse than she thought.

Trying to draw the least amount of attention that one wearing a leather jacket with red stitching on the right arm could draw, Robin shuffled over to the bread on the table, shuffled over to the toaster, and before she could even loose the twist-tie, Samson cleared his throat.

“Good morning,” he greeted her from behind the paper. Six-foot-two, a constant five-o-clock shadow, sharply cut hair, and with brunette brows always downturned, one would’ve thought him sinister. Instead, he always kept a kind countenance.

Robin feigned a smile, looking over her shoulder. “Morning,” she chimed. 

Then came the awkward silence. Robin sat against the counter, watching the door out of which she would make her exit. Hopefully, she could get away without more than that one word. She wasn’t even sure why she wanted to leave so badly. She didn’t know where she’d be going. At least Kali thought to pack her bike up in her van the night before, dropping both it and Robin off at Plutarch Avenue. 

Fuck; her ears immediately reddened at the thought of Kali. Was that who she was going to see? She covered her mouth. There was no way this was happening. She was not crushing on Kali. Kali and her stupid hair. That stupid makeup. That stupid way that, for as domineering as Kali’s made her tiny presence out to be, all Robin wanted to do was live in that shadow. Hold that hand. The tight grip. Because despite the danger Kali introduced into Robin’s life, Robin somehow found a safety—a niche, or a warmth—in the grasp that Kali offered. 

And like magic, the toast shot up, freeing Robin from her thoughts. 

But she wouldn’t be lucky enough to just escape with her toast. Unfortunately, through another door, her mother strolled in, wearing a navy and white pinstriped shirt and a bright red skirt. Samson peeked over his paper, and upon getting this eyeful of clashing colors, dropped the paper into his lap. He almost looked ready to puke at the combination. Robin couldn’t exactly say she was a fan either. Maybe it’d catch on in a couple years.

“Edith, what is _that?”_ Samson drawled, eyes roaming around every inch of the fabric to find some kind of connection.

“This one is lighter than this one,” she replied gently. “And I liked how they felt.”

Robin pressed her lips together. She knew her mother was colorblind—completely monochromatic—but sometimes she created an avant-garde look with what she had. This one though... damn.

“It just doesn’t look right, Edie. Let me help.” Samson moved to get up, but seeing the stubborn look on her face, he just sighed and brought his paper shield back up over his eyes.

Robin grabbed her toast and a plate, hobbled behind Samson, and fell into the chair between the table and the corner of the kitchen. She would’ve been content with just the toast, but she knew her mother would begin her cooking routine. She took a pan off the wall and set it on the stove. She danced around the kitchen, gathering eggs, peppers, sausage, and everything else for a frittata. Where she failed in fashion, she excelled in cooking.

Cooking only ended up being a later-in-life hobby. Really, it was more of a necessity with a kid and a man who hadn’t the first clue about anything more than soup. Robin knew her mother’s true passion had always laid in gaming. For whatever reason, despite her muddled vision, she loved going to the arcade and was overjoyed to have gotten an NES for Christmas the year previous. 

Robin wasn’t exactly sure how her mother became colorblind. Her mother was never sure either. She had just woken up on an autumn day, all color lost on her. Robin remembered her mom talking about the first arcade cabinet ever being installed in the back room of the laundromat where she and her father had met. She remembered her mom talking about how they were the only ones who knew about it and the only ones who hung out there. Robin had her suspicions about it, especially considering she’d never heard of any game like it, but tried to step around it. Due to her father’s sudden death, her mom deemed anything regarding him a touchy subject. Typically, that included how she went colorblind.

So Robin left it alone. For all the shadow that resided there in that corner of the past, and for all the enigma tucked away in that shadow, and for all the answers Robin hungered for in that enigma in that shadow in that corner, she really wanted no part of it. Snooping into other’s corners was one of her favorite pastimes. Snooping into her own? She couldn’t withstand the misery that came with the mystery, and she knew it. She’d never bother. 

“So how’s Steve doing?” Samson asked with a flip of the page. 

“Fine,” Robin said, short and sweet. 

“What did you two do all day?” her mom asked, still focused on her stove work. 

Easier to add some semblance of truth. It was harder to remember a lie. “An old friend’s in town. After school, we just drove around. She was cool, I guess.” Robin tucked a hair behind her ear and looked off to the side. “I mean, kind of cool. Mostly, she was sort of standoffish. But, you know, in a cool way.”

“Oh?” Samson raised his brows, actually looking at her for the first time this morning. “What’s her name?”

“Kali,” Robin effused. She bit the inside of her cheek. Way to fucking out herself. “It’s a foreign name.” After opening the floodgates, she really wished she could just drown herself in toast.

“It’s pretty,” her mom piped up. She smiled teasingly at Robin. “I bet she is too, isn’t she?”

Robin ducked. There really was no easy answer. She reluctantly nodded and took a bite of toast. Better to muffle herself before she blurted out something stupid. 

“You should invite her over for dinner sometime. Y’know, before she heads out,” her mom said.

“Sure,” Robin mumbled in reply. On the inside, she cursed herself for having given them the opportunity to meet anyone in her life. On the outside, she abandoned ship, pushing her chair out and leaving the kitchen. 

“Where’re you going?” Samson called.

“Out,” Robin replied.

💾

Out ended up being the Palace Arcade. She had to right some wrongs. Yesterday, Steve should have taken the morning shift. She would have come in after school, had she gone that day. But alas, she had a journey through an old and abandoned lab to go on. So, she owed Keith an apology. Also, an apology to her wallet. She’d work extra some time.

Though Keith managed the movie rental, he still hung onto his second job at the arcade. He was just a guy, like any guy, trying his best to make ends meet. So when Robin appeared at the prize corner, he had every right to be angry. 

“Hey,” she chirped, trying to put on her cheeriest face.

He held up a hand and turned tail into his office. Robin hoisted herself over the desk, following him. He slammed the door behind him and she did the same. She stuck by the door, arms crossed while he dropped into the rolling chair behind his desk. 

The office used to be her father’s when it was still a laundromat. Felt kind of homey. It was a small little area with a little coffee pot on the desk. Freshly made, smelled like. Reminded her of exactly what she forgot to get from the kitchen that morning.

Keith folded his arms on the desk, leering up at her. “Well?” He scoffed. “What happened yesterday?” 

Robin bit her lip. She shrugged. “I—“

“I drove by the store on my way to work here and Steve wasn’t there. You’re the one who recommended him.”

“Yeah, and I just forgot to tell you that he was going out of town,” Robin said. Technically, it wasn’t a lie.

“What about you? Why didn’t you come in for him?”

“I was sick,” Robin coughed. Great bit of quick thinking. Now she just had to end every sentence with a cough. “I’m getting over it now.” Cough.

“You suddenly got sick after one day?” Keith deadpanned.

Robin threw herself into a coughing fit, complete with nearly buckling to her knees. She peered upward, eyes blank. “Yes.” Cough, cough.

And she could’ve soliloquized about how no one frequented the store anyway, but it wouldn’t have gotten her anywhere with Keith. He always did fancy that his Blockbuster would be the lifeblood of Hawkins forever.

“Okay,” Keith said after some time. “Get out of my office so I can fume in peace,” he muttered. 

“Um...” Robin bit the side of her lip. “... I don’t suppose I could get some coffee before I go?” Cough?

Keith lifted his head and gave her a slow blink. 

In his language, that meant yes, because she walked out of the office with a styrofoam cup in her hand. Delicately, she stepped over the kiosk while taking a long sip. She sat back against the cool surface, enjoying the rest of her coffee. 

Palace on a Saturday thrived with gamers. _Ghosts N’ Goblins_ had a line as long as the width of the store and a thick crowd around the cabinet to go with it. There still happened to be some stragglers around _Dragon’s Lair_ and _Mortal Kombat_. _Galaga_ sat in a small sad corner, unplayed. Robin downed her cup like a shot of whiskey, threw away the cup, and made her way toward _Galaga_.

Walking across the bad acid trip-carpeting, she heard an extra set of feet behind her. She waited until she arrived at the cabinet to look over her shoulder. “Got a spare quarter?” 

“Oh. Yeah, actually.” 

Usually she would’ve been content to kick an old cabinet like this until it malfunctioned, thinking she had paid it, but she now she could allieve herself of the guilt that it spawned in her. All zero-point-zero-one milligrams of it. 

Robin took the quarter from Kali’s fingertips. Just when she got ready to insert it, she rubbed the coin with a bit of confusion. It was rougher than a regular quarter, and, in fact, the whole shape was wrong. Her fingertips grazed what looked to be air, but felt like the sharp edges of a small rock. She tossed it to the side.

She looked back at Kali, whose eyes were closed. Robin snickered. So that was her tell— light around her eyes like a glow-in-the-dark pair of contacts. If she didn’t close her eyes, it’d be too obvious.

“So you were really just gonna let me pay for this with a stone?” Robin stood and began kicking the cabinet. Eventually it made a bleep of good consciousness, allowing her to start up the game. Didn’t really feel worth it though. Some “MADMAX” destroyed all of Robin’s hi-scores in her absence from the arcade. 

“Didn’t think you’d catch on so fast,” Kali groaned. She leaned against the cabinet’s edge. If Robin’s eyes weren’t transfixed on the moving screen, their eyes would’ve been locked on each other. Kali chuckled. “People tend to believe more in their vision than any other sense. I’ve given people rocks, biscuits, sheets of printer paper—you name it. They rarely catch on. We’re more content to believe in what we see compared to what’s not just there in front of our eyes.”

“And you say this to say...?” Robin trailed off. She had aliens to kill, damnit. Kali should’ve known better than to go on some long existential thread while pixelated alien-killing was happening.

“Just that there are truths we know to exist, but we would rather believe in only what we see. There’s all sorts of things that exist which we cannot see. Radio waves, electric, and air, for instance... and love,” Kali suggested. What she was really suggesting though, Robin hadn’t the foggiest idea.

“Yeah. You’re right,” she agreed, barely hanging onto the conversation. 

Kali blew air and turned her gaze to the door of the arcade. “I really should be going. I just saw your bike and thought I’d stop in.”

“Are you—“ Robin cleared her throat “—leaving Hawkins?” She couldn’t have been more obvious if she tried. 

To be fair, she wasn’t sure if she actually wanted Kali to leave or stay. Everything surrounding her felt a little uncertain, even with more and more information coming to her in bits and pieces. Couldn’t get to know a person all in one day though, and she wouldn’t get a chance if Kali left now.

“No, I’m not. I’ll be here for another couple days at least. Actually, I would’ve been leaving if not for Nine being a complete and total idiot. I’m going back to the lab. Apparently he let something loose that he really, _really_ shouldn’t have,” Kali said gravely.

Robin’s heart did flips. Silently, she thanked Nine. At the same time, her stomach dropped, and she cursed Nine for embedding her deeper into this swamp of mystery.

“Great,” Robin said as she allowed her ship to be shot. She turned to Kali. “Let’s go then.”

Kali held a hand in front of Robin’s chest. “Oh no. I didn’t say you were coming. I’d really prefer you stay away from this.”

“Why?” Robin furrowed her brow.

“Because.”

“Because...” Robin drew out the word, taking a tentative step toward Kali. “...why?”

Kali stood her ground, scowling up at Robin. “Because I’m dangerous, Robin. This is dangerous.”

Robin laughed from disbelief. “I’ve fought Russians and now you’re saying I can’t handle one mutant human being.”

“And exactly how did you know it was a mutant human being?” Kali demanded.

Fuck. “I just inferred—“

“You didn’t infer anything.” Kali held a finger up near Robin’s chin as if it was some gun that could go off at any moment. “I could’ve been talking about something extra-dimensional, which would be more common for the lab. How did you know I was talking about a mutant?”

Robin swallowed. There really was no getting around it. “Because I helped Nine to release him.”

“Fuck!” Kali shouted down at the floor.

“Hey, there’s children around!” Robin screeched, moving to put her hand on Kali’s mouth. Kali snatched her hand out of the air, holding it there.

“I don’t give a shit!” Kali hissed. “I honestly cannot believe you, Robin.” She let  
go of her and turned in the direction of the door. “Let’s just get out of here before the sun goes down.”

“I thought you said I wasn’t coming with you,” Robin said as a smile began to perk her lips.

Kali looked as if she was cursing herself inwardly. “I say a lot of things. Come on before I change my mind.”

That was score one for Buckley, and a fine ass zero for Prasad. 

After loading up her bike in the trunk, Robin practically threw herself into the passenger seat. She couldn’t hide her smile as she watched Kali start the van up again. She even deigned to grin back at Nine, who laid sprawled out in the backseat, dozing with a half-eaten box of Twinkies on his chest. Robin wondered if Steve felt like a bird freed from its cage to flock when he was with Nancy and Jonathan. There was just something special about having a group to call your own. That is, if she could hold onto them long enough without losing her life. 

And that really was the thing about it. Everything in her heart told her she belonged with them. Everything in her mind told her to run the fuck away and never look back. What better group of people to saddle herself with, then? It was a dangerous gambit, but her gut told her it was one that would be worth it.

“So do you come here often?” Kali asked, adjusting the rearview mirror before heading out of the arcade lot. 

“Like I’ve said before, I burned this place up in middle school. My favorite game was actually this one that didn’t have a name. They just kinda dropped it into the arcade in an all black cabinet.” Robin quieted. Wait—fuck, there were some blank spots there. “Um...” she tried to continue, but found herself at a loss for words. But this was so trivial.

Kali cringed. “I’m sorry, did something happen?” 

“No. No...” Robin ran a hand through her hair. “I just remember having really bad hallucinations and sleepwalking fits after I played it. I remember thinking it was worth it because it was so fun in the moment. Mom made me stop playing it though. I didn’t go to the arcade much after that.” Robin laid back against her seat and exhaled.

“What was it like?” Kali faltered for a second. “If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

Robin furrowed her brow. She wasn’t sure if she could even remember. She’d try her best to put the pieces together. “There was... um... a little rainbow ship. And... you had to shoot oncoming targets. Over time, everything would speed up faster and faster. It always looked so realistic compared to the other games. I usually came away with migraines.” 

“Then why come back to it?” Kali laughed. She cleared her throat, probably not meaning to have had such a reaction.

Didn’t matter, Robin found herself chuckling a bit too. “I dunno. I was just a dumbass kid. It’s like drinking. You enjoy it in the moment, and you pay for it later.” 

Kali smiled, genuine at first, then ashamedly. Robin felt her own smile drop slightly. So they were on the same page, then. If Robin was to pay for this, she had accepted the terms and conditions the moment she heard Kali’s name.

“You’re tense,” Robin observed at the first red light.

“I’m always tense,” Kali shot back. 

No, not that Robin had seen. She supposed she really didn’t know Kali enough to say that aloud. So she swept that observation under the rug. She’d pull it back out another time.

💾

With their approach to the Hawkins National Laboratory made sooner, they reached the building quite a few hours before sundown. The lights had managed to stay on, but Nine warned the other two that they’d have to turn them off soon before someone noticed. Thus, they had their separate missions.

Nine ventured by his lonesome to the generators. Kali and Robin decidedly stuck together to search for the mutant. Out of the two jobs, Robin wasn’t sure which one she really preferred, only that she would’ve rather been with Kali than the guy who got this started in the first place. A little bit of level-headedness went a long way.

They returned to the Scorched-Earth room to find the capsule completely open. The room carried the faint smell of freezer-burn. Where the room had been frigid and hard to breathe in, now it felt humid and moist. Footprints seared the floor, slowly fading on the approach toward the door. On the outside wall, a burned in handprint suggested that the mutant used the surface to prop itself up. 

In order to avoid a split, Kali took Robin’s hand. Robin had been wandering but never strayed far enough to have warranted that kind of assurance. She did understand where Kali was coming from. If she’d let something happen to one of Steve’s dinguses while infiltrating the Russian base, she never would’ve let herself live that down. Better to take precaution than set up for failure. 

The search effort proved to be a lot less than fruitful. There were no tracks to be found, and Kali wasn’t disclosing any more information than she didn’t have to. After what had to be about an hour’s worth of searching, they took a breather in a break room.

“So, when you get this guy, are you going to lock him back up?” Robin asked as she walked over to a vending machine. It still had a few candy bars and chip bags in it. Maybe she could shake something out.

Kali had her head in her hands. “What else is there to do?” 

“Is he that dangerous? Isn’t he just like you? Experimented on and all that?” Robin argued. She gave the machine a couple kicks.

“He’s entirely unhinged. We all wanted revenge, but he was completely ready to kill innocents just for being in the same building. Yes, he’s like us, except we weren’t so corrupted to go that far,” she said, almost a little offended.

Robin shook the vending machine back and forth. “I’m sure he could be saved.”

“No. Usually I would agree, but he’s tried to kill Nine on multiple occasions. Ask Nine why he wears that scarf all the time. It’s not just to hide his mouth around the normies.” Her voice became softer, “They were the closest out of anybody in the lab.”

Robin stared at her reflection in the vending machine. Hadn't Nine said the same of Kali and Eleven? Probably best not to pursue that in the moment. “So, Nine wrote ‘I’m sorry’ on the capsule. What’s that about?” Robin lowered herself to the ground, sticking her arm up into the machine’s flap.

“I don’t actually know. All I know is Nine was taken out of this lab when it got shut down, and he wasn’t.” 

Robin stopped groping around the empty space in the machine to look at Kali. “Does he have a name?” 

Kali rested her cheek on her knuckles. A smile tugged at her lips as she tried not to laugh at Robin’s predicament. “Well... Cain is what he went by. I expunged that name from my memory a long time ago. I never really spent much time around him. We’d mostly give each other passing glances. I’d see him with Nine more often than not.” 

“Oh,” Robin murmured. She freed herself from the machine, rubbing her newly pained wrist. “Help me shake this thing down,” she ordered Kali.

Pretty much rolling her eyes on the inside, Kali picked up a chair and trudged over to the machine. Robin hopped backward as Kali forced the chair’s legs through the glass. She threw the chair to the side and gestured to the free game she’d just created.

“Have at it,” Kali said impassively. 

Damn, it really paid to hang out with someone with grey morals. Paid in Paydays, at least. Because fuck the other shit that was leftover. Butterfingers and Crunch bars were shit, plain and simple. On an SAT, they’d be the first to score a 0. Whoever grabbed the last of the Snickers before the place went to hell in a handbag could go suck a dick. Robin gathered a couple of Paydays and tucked a pack of skittles away in her jacket pocket. She gave Kali a nod of thanks. 

“I think you forgot that now that nobody’s here, we can do whatever we want to the place,” Kali said as they left.

“Duly noted,” Robin simpered. 

Above them, the lights flickered. At first, it was blink and you’d miss it, but the duration became more a fluctuation as time went on. Entrancing as it was, Robin couldn’t help but look up with her mouth open. It couldn’t have been the result of the generators being powered off. 

Robin and Kali shared a look of confusion. A screaming from a lower level of the building sparked them into action. Kali took Robin’s hand and led her toward the elevators. Remembering her last bout with elevators, Robin tugged Kali toward the stairs. No matter how dire the situation was, having the possibility of getting stuck on an elevator wouldn’t ever be worth it. 

They hurried to the bottom floor, all the while, screams which sounded increasingly like Nine’s haunted them. Their effort to hie to the point of the terror failed. Though they’d reached the bottom floor, the screams still came from deeper below.

A lightbulb seemed to go off in Kali’s head as she yanked Robin from the Scorched-Earth room and over to the elevators. Robin did her best to subtly dig her heels in the ground, but she achieved nothing in doing so.

“What is your problem?” Kali snapped, accidentally jerking Robin forward. They were face to face now, and while Robin held tight to defiance, Kali was seething. 

“I’ve gotten stuck on elevators before, and it’s not a fun experience. It would do us better to take some other set of stairs that might lead further down,” Robin explained with as steady of a voice as she could manage. She cringed, realizing this wouldn’t begin to cut it with Kali.

Kali took a moment to establish the rage behind her dark eyes by glaring intently into Robin’s blue. “I will not hesitate to leave you here if you intend on impeding this mission,” she spoke measuredly and with restraint.

Settled with white-hot anger, Kali gripped Robin’s hand tighter than before and waited on the elevator to come. Once it arrived, she let go of Robin’s hand to position herself at the buttons. She flipped the panel upward and pressed a few buttons which Kali had obscured from Robin’s vision.

The elevator began its descent with a gentle hum. Nails dug into Robin’s palms. Seeing as Kali leaned against the wall a fair distance from her, they could only have been hers. Robin did her best to unclench her fists, but her arms only sprung up to grip into her upper arms. Pain seared through her arms as she scratched herself when the elevator suddenly stopped, bouncing like a marionette. The elevator showed no sign of opening its doors. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Robin found herself whispering, quieter and quieter, sliding down the wall into a sitting position.

Kali sneered. “Get it together, Buckley,” she spat. “The doors won’t open here unless you press a button. It’s for safety measures.” 

Once Kali opened the doors, Robin sprang from the floor and onto the stable footing outside the elevator. Kali emerged to take Robin’s hand again. Robin squeezed her hand with all the force she could muster. They scurried down the hall and around the corner. The door in front of them had been pried slightly open, and then a pair of hands singed the sides, squeezing through.

Together, they faced a large slit in the wall which looked to have been forced open at some point and then closed at another. A swampy and moorish atmosphere spilled forth from the fissure that was leftover. Fleshy and ripped, it had the appearance of dead skin. This must have been the portal that Eleven had closed. Good for her.

From the left, Nine came careening toward the ground, looking to have been slung there. Robin gasped aloud, shocked that he was still breathing and shocked at the realization that she would’ve felt horrible had they been too late. Meekly, Nine managed to push himself up to his knees and elbows. Judging by the burn marks on his cheeks and the scars on what pieces of his neck were visible, he looked like he’d really been put through the wringer. His scarf hung limply from his neck, a majority of the ends having been burnt off. He panted, barely able to catch his breath. 

Letting go of Robin’s hand, Kali slid on her knees toward him. She pulled him to his feet with Robin’s help. He spluttered and faltered over and over, seeming to have forgotten that he couldn’t speak out of his mouth. All Robin could gather from his mental prowess was a bit of buzzing. Kali didn’t look to be receiving any messages either. 

Kali directed Nine toward the elevator. Robin helped from the back, but couldn’t ignore the blaze of sweat accruing on her skin. She swallowed, getting the bitter feeling that she was going to have to turn around. She should’ve walked away with Kali, but that wouldn’t have jived well with her curiosity. Robin turned her head, hands still on Nine’s shoulders, eyes focused and widening on the burning flames newly lighting up the room. 

There stood who she presumed to be Cain, a man who inexplicably cast his whole body into crackling flames, burning bright and dangerous. Robin felt like a moth drawn to a flame, unable to look away from him, or even move, for that matter. He could’ve charged her, but he chose to meander toward the sealed portal. Gasoline’s stench purveyed the air, never fading even as his smoke trailed distantly. 

“Take Nine and go. I’ll distract him,” Kali whispered to Robin.

”You’re out of your goddamn mind if you think I’m leaving you with Johnny Storm here,” Robin chastised her. 

The girls turned their attention back to the man on fire the moment he approached the portal. Sizzles sounded from its split as he blowtorched it open using his bare hands. In her most Steveish action, Robin pushed herself away from Nine, leaving him to crumple in Kali’s arms. She rushed toward Cain without a plan and with only the knowledge that if he opened that portal again, they’d have more to worry about than just him. She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t. Couldn’t go through that hellish week of nightmares again. Couldn’t take that feeling of dread every time she saw Steve get hurt. Couldn’t take the chance of watching someone die right in front of her again. She couldn’t. 

But halfway there, Robin felt a grip on her forearm. Kali jerked her backward, causing her to fall to her side. 

“Don’t be so fucking stupid!” Kali chided her, eyes wide and golden in light of the flames. “We have to give up and go home!” 

“Surely, we can do something!” Robin pleaded. “We have to! This is all my fault!” Though she so desperately ached for the missing puzzle piece, the answer, the hidden code to the message, all she could do was watch as the portal opened again, right before her very eyes.

“Fuck!” Kali screeched, covering her eyes with her forearm. Blood dropped from behind it. 

Cain cackled menacingly behind her, causing her to turn around. He stood proudly in front of his work, arms outstretched like Atlas, bearing the weight of his world. His flames dispersed, and underneath laid that same man Robin swore she’d seen for a fleeting moment in the hallway. 

“Sorry to disappoint you, but there’s really nothing you can do.” Cain’s smirk inspired a horrible glint in his eyes. “Kali, I’d hurry up and skedaddle if I were you. You and Nine might just get to leave with your lives. It’s a pleasure very few of us can afford.”

“Whatever they did to you, it’s not worth all of this! They’re all gone now!” Robin shouted, propping herself up on her elbows.

Cain shook his head, eyes low and full of nothing but contempt. “I will never be content until this building goes down in flames! And from the ashes, my fury will be reborn like a phoenix, coming for all who left me behind,” he simmered, affecting his speech with a slight hiss. His eyes fell on Robin’s wrist. He glared up at her, a new fury ignited in him. “And fuck you especially. You were supposed to be a promise of freedom. Who do you think you are, Ten?” 

Ten? Robin pushed herself into a standing position. “Now, you listen here, you flaming fuckface—“ Before she could continue her tirade, Kali and Nine heaved her upward from under her arms out of the doors, backwards through the hall, and into the elevator. They threw her back as gently as possible(which is to say, neither of them knew the definition of gentle) and closed the doors. 

Nine sat in a corner, fully kaput, having exerted his last bit of energy to pull Robin away. Kali rested against the wall after pressing the first floor command. Other than the heaving of discordant breaths, the elevator carried out its ascent in silence.

The ceiling peered down at her with a somberly grey expression. Robin let her head fall to the floor, and her solemn gaze met the wall. Her eyes dropped to her very, very blank left wrist. This was the way the world ended. This was the way their world ended. This was the way her world ended. Not with a bang, but with totally fucked up Rubik’s cube worth of unsolved mysteries surrounding her family history and involvement with the Hawkins National Laboratory.

💾

  
All the way home, Robin found she could do nothing but stare down at her wrists. They were as pale and untouched as they’d ever been. Occasionally, she’d sneak a look over to Kali’s wrists as she drove. “008” marked them, plain as day. 

If this was the worst case of amnesia ever, Robin personally welcomed it. Everything else in her life was already so fucked up. Might as well add another heaping helping of confusion into it. So, so many things her mother regretted to tell her were coming to the surface now. The longer she went without answers, she feared she might do something reckless. Riding out to the lab by herself? Yeah, that was reckless enough.

But no answer was worth enduring a handful of flames or whatever monsters spewed forth from the newly reopened portal. Whatever the puppet-master who swung Robin between all her bad decisions chose for her would be her fate. There was nothing she could say or do about it. If life willed her to face fire and fiends for some sort of resolution that probably wouldn’t satisfy her anyway, then so be it.

For now, Robin leaned back in her seat, trying to doze away the stress of the current events. Nine did the same, getting to the point of snoring. Robin wished she could settle that easily. 

“I never heard a thank you,” Kali muttered.

Having been somewhat startled out of a sleepy haze, Robin made a noise that even she didn’t understand.

“I saved your life back there,” Kali clarified. “I’ve only seen Ten once in my life, but... I didn’t want Cain to know your face just in case this goes farther than the lab.”

“W—“

“And no, you are not going back. Never.” Kali’s glare intensified once she set it on Robin. “ _Never_. I’ll never forgive you if you defy me on that principle.” 

“Yeah, okay, short stuff,” Robin whispered.

“Yes, I really mean it, tall-ass,” Kali said loudly.

“Fountainhead,” Robin retorted instinctually.

“Beanpole.”

“Punk.”

“ _Stoner_.”

“ _Van hobo_.”

They fell silent for a moment.

“I could do this all day,” Robin bragged, adjusting her jacket noisily. Kali eyed her with a brow raised.

“Oh, that reminds me...” Kali cleared her throat. “I’ve been dying to say, but I really like your jacket. It suits you. I mean— just in how terrible it looks. Like, that just sums up your look entirely,” she backtracked. “I mean... what an absolutely terrible sewing job,” she snickered.

“At least I’m not wearing a preppy varsity jacket like some cheerleader who thinks the best dick she’s ever gonna get is from the star quarterback,” Robin fired back. 

“Touché. That was pretty good,” Kali murmured. “And intricate. Who hurt you?” she laughed quietly.

Robin stole a glance at Kali, whose cheeks had noticeably reddened. Robin closed her eyes and smirked.

“Robin.”

“Yeah?” she murmured, opening her eyes slightly.

“Robin, I’m the jock,” Kali said, correcting the narrative somewhat late.

“ _Riiight_ ,“ Robin drawled.

Kali rapped the wheel playfully. “I’m serious. I’m serious, Robin. I played softball. That’s how I got this jacket.”

Robin gave a breathy chuckle. “No way! Me too!” 

“I sort of pictured you as more of a band kid,” Kali said, brow furrowed. She looked Robin up and down to confirm her suspicions. 

“You’re not wrong,” Robin went ahead and affirmed for her. “I did little league, but I was also playing around with my mom’s old trombone and I liked that a lot more, so... I ended up just focusing on that for the rest of school.”

Kali waggled a finger at her. “I knew I was getting the right vibe. I knew you were a nerd.”

“So...” Robin sat back and grinned at Kali. “Shouldn’t you be pulling over to the closest gas station and dunking my head in one of the toilets?” 

Kali barked out a harsh laugh. “That’s gotta be a million times worse than a school bathroom. I don’t think even my worst enemy deserves that kind of swirlie.” 

“What about your second worst?” Robin asked, looking down at her sneakers. 

“Yeah, I guess if they’re my second worst, they probably deserve it,” Kali answered. 

“So am I your worst enemy then?” Robin tucked her hair behind her ear. She smiled up at Kali, who was somehow keeping a serious face now.

Kali raised her brows at Robin. “No... you are like... maybe the third. Third worst.” She nodded with an air of cockiness. 

Robin crossed her arms, leaning against the door to take all of Kali in. “That’s okay. I know I’m the first worst in your heart. You’re just too scared to open up about it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“Okay, nerd.” 

Robin wrinkled her nose from how scrunched up her smile was. Kali held to a somewhat stoic countenance. But Robin could tell she’d get her to break. Eventually.

  
💾

  
Having returned to Hawkins just after sundown, Kali dropped Nine off at the motel. She and Robin double-teamed to literally drop him into bed. Judging by all the bruises he’d endured, it was likely he wouldn’t be waking up for a while. Kali sat on the opposite bed, watching his chest fall and rise—just making sure he remained alive at all costs. Tired of awkwardly standing by the door, Robin plopped down beside her. It truly seemed that Kali, with as tired as she was, only hung on in quiet desperation. 

Should she have left? Robin traced a circle in the bedding. No, not without a word at least. Even so, how could she leave Kali, who was clearly hurting? She had Nine, but Nine wouldn’t wake up for a while yet. Robin left him a pack of Skittles on the beside table. For the morning, of course. No madman would dare partake in fruit-flavored hard candy in the late hours.

Kali rose suddenly to take her jacket off. Robin did well to only tap her knees. Kali walked around the bed to put down her jacket and grab some clothes from her suitcase. 

“I’m going to shower,” she said. “Feel free to stick around.” 

Oh, oh wow. That was the worst possible thing Kali could’ve said. She was already thinking about the minor definition on Kali’s arms. She didn’t need to think about anything else. Nothing else. Nothing below the waist. Or above the waist. Or around the waist. So, she thought about Tammy Thompson’s waist. What a waist, that waist. Certainly not a waste of a waist. How would one waste a waist though? Impossible, that. 

“Are you feeling alright?” Kali asked, standing just outside the bathroom door.

Robin furrowed her brow. “Yeah, why?”

“You’ve been staring at the wall like you’re going to fuck it and make it scream your name all night long,” Kali laughed. 

“I have not!” Robin protested, covering her flaming hot face. 

Kali smirked. “Have so.” She had been hovering around the bathroom door for a while now, but seemed to pivot slightly, like a schoolgirl getting the latest gossip or interacting with her crush. Robin had been on both ends, and she knew it must’ve been the former. “Do you like Nine?“

If only the lord could be quicker in taking her. 

Robin shook her head vigorously. “No, _absolutely_ not.” She squinted. “Do you?”

“He’s gay,” Kali said quickly.

“ _I’m_ gay,” Robin shot back just as quick.

“Oh,” Kali murmured.

Uncomfortable silence. 

“Hm,” Kali said before disappearing behind the bathroom door.

Fuck!

Robin didn’t know a whole lot about Kali, but she knew a lot about herself, and she knew she took thirty minutes to shower. So, if Kali was anything like her, Robin was going to have to wait thirty minutes until she could ask what “hm” meant. 

Or, maybe it would only be five minutes if Kali was anything like Steve, who stood under the shower head for a couple minutes and got out. The other three minutes were dedicated to drowning himself in cologne. Kali didn’t have a noticeable perfume or cologne scent. That information wouldn’t give her any hint of what “hm” meant though. 

“Hm” could mean anything. Could mean she was interested. Could mean she caught on to Robin’s gaze. Could mean she wasn’t interested at all and actually found it quite weird. “Hm” could mean “ well, that’s nice, but actually I made the decision like two days ago that I was going to kill you, so feel free to obsess over me while you prepare to die.” And that wouldn’t be too bad. Probably the most accurate one on the ever expanding list of what “hm” could mean.

But really. What could Robin, give to Kali, who has everything? Nothing. The answer was nothing. Not unless Kali wanted to just settle down in this podunk town where nothing (and sometimes everything) ever happened. If Kali wanted to anchor herself to some random chick she met two days ago and have a normal life away from the vigilante life she used to have... then, well, wouldn’t it be nice? But it would never happen.

Robin tugged at her sleeve. She’d probably have to be the one to change if she wanted even the slightest of chances. She didn’t care to get her hands dirty, and she didn’t care about her roots in Hawkins. She could cut those anytime. Just say the word. 

Except Steve. He’d be pretty hard to let go of. And her mom, too. She always meant well. Fuck, and even Samson was kind of nice sometimes. What about her theater troupe(especially with that Dustin kid doing backstage with her now) and her band and her classmates? More roots than she’d care to admit. But sometimes you had to uproot daisies to make room for the roses, right? 

She really liked the daisies though. She’d just planted one of those daisies months ago. She bonded quickly. Probably a little too quickly, as evidenced by her new crush. Robin made her bed of flowers. She wasn’t opposed to sleeping in it if the roses were there to cushion her from the holes left behind by the uprooted daisies.

So trying to figure out what “hm” meant was pointless after all. Robin, for the moment, satisfied herself in the idea that “hm” was meaningless to her. No point in going over it over and over in her mind.

Didn’t mean she wasn’t gonna continue doing that anyway.

Kali emerged from the bathroom after a good twenty—Robin hadn’t meant to watch the clock, but it was the only distraction available—and immediately it seemed her eyes were set on Robin. Robin folded her legs and leaned back as Kali approached. Though her heart raced, she felt strongly that nothing would happen. She found herself correct when, while drying her hair with one hand, Kali reached over Robin’s shoulder to grab a remote that had been left on the bed. 

“Should... should I go?” Robin asked, wondering how she’d kept herself from stuttering.

“I don’t mind your company. I trust you well enough,” Kali replied with a slight shrug. She made herself comfortable next to Robin(who hoped she didn’t notice the flush that had come over her cheeks). “If you want to stop by over the week, feel free to do so. I won’t be here during the day on account of...” Kali glared at Nine. 

Robin smiled. This was probably either going to go uphill very slowly or downhill really fast.

And Robin wasn’t used to a slow pace.

  
💾

  
Since Robin had Fall Break to spend outside of school, she spent her nights—which extended into four and five in the morning sometimes—with Kali and Nine. Sometimes, they played card games—which Robin won every time thanks to her natural luck. Other times, they talked about their lives. Just the basics. Where they grew up, the people they’d met along the way(which, for Kali was her gang out of Chicago, but for Nine was a laundry list of crushes he’d had over the past year), and the plans they’d had for the future. And, as it turned out, none of them really had future plans that they’d had a firm grasp on. All they knew was that they wanted to ditch Hawkins eventually. But didn’t everyone? Especially with a special someone? 

On a particularly boring Tuesday night, Nine attempted to explain the science behind the Upside Down and the demogorgon. According to him, a team of biologists jokingly referred to the demogorgon as a Hetero sapien. The name caught on despite being unfounded in actual classification rules, which Nine seemed pretty upset about. He actually took the whole taxonomy deal seriously, calling the demogorgon a Pellis dentatus and himself a Homo dentatus. Nine prattling on about all of the intra and extra dimensional gaps in certain meridians of the world really hit different when Kali was asleep and they were sharing a pint. Robin might’ve learned a lot more scientific vocabulary than her physics teacher could ever teach her, but she also remembered just as much of it. 

Robin also learned a lot through games of “Never Have I Ever.” And thanks to Nine outing Kali’s expeditions of the female sex, Robin was gifted with new and intriguing dreams of her crush. She tried to shove these back down into her subconscious of course, but it was easier said than done.

Thursday night, Kali and Robin managed to dip out to J’s Diner to pick up some burgers. Robin was sure that Kali hadn’t purposefully played _Atomic_ by Blondie on the jukebox while they waited at the counter. Robin was also sure Kali hadn’t purposefully put her varsity jacket around her when they got back outside—Robin herself hadn’t purposefully forgotten her jacket back at the motel, no. And Robin was very, very, very sure Kali hadn’t purposefully pulled into the quarry when Robin told her Mars was visible to the naked eye tonight. Even when Kali used her powers to make Mars larger than usual to wow Robin, she was sure this was just... something a friend would do. Granted, they had psychic powers.

On the last night of Fall Break, Kali and Nine came back a little more roughed up than usual. This time, they had actually encountered Cain. Nine laid in bed, neck and chin singed. As Kali had explained, Cain had tried to choke him to death before Kali had managed to trick him into thinking Nine had melted in his hands. It stunned him enough to make him run off into another part of the laboratory, giving Kali and Nine time and space enough to get back to the van. 

With their lives, they also brought the valuable information of what Cain had been planning to do. He wanted to unleash the hellbeasts that laid on the other side of the portal upon Hawkins as revenge for what he went through in the lab. Of course, this would mean the death of countless innocents. He had to be stopped at all costs. Robin was more than happy to help and to recruit help, but Kali was adamant in getting her to stay out of it. The only person who could seal the portal was Jane, and she was... _not_ missing in action, but... Kali didn't know that, and Robin wasn't interested in getting her face ripped off or... whatever madness Kali was capable of unleashing upon her with her illusion work. 

Now, they sat on Kali’s bed, both unsure of what to say on the matter.

Robin hummed softly. “Um...” She bit her lip. “It’s my birthday tomorrow,” she said, more like a revelation than exposition.

Kali’s eyes hovered over the clock on the right wall. Only about five hours until the big moment. “Happy early birthday, then.” 

“Thanks,” Robin mumbled. Her eyes fell over the centimeters of distance between their hands. Kali’s clenched the bedsheet, but Robin wasn’t sure where or with whom her anger laid. “Do you...” Fuck. She shouldn’t have even started. But goddamnit, now she had to finish. “Do you maybe... want to come over for dinner?” 

Kali looked down at the floor, troubled. She held her gaze on Nine, who shifted in bed uncomfortably. 

Damn, she hadn’t gotten rejected this subtly since Nina Gillespie in the eighth grade who she swore to this day had to just be heavily closeted because no one wore that much flannel and fake grunge fashion, no one. All Nina had to do was look her up and down and Robin got the hint. Kali’s silence hit a little differently though.

Oh and she played drums too, Nina did. Only girl in the percussion section. Nina continued to be a head-scratcher to this day. 

Robin sighed, realizing she’d put Kali in a difficult position. “You absolutely do not have to, it’s just my parents—“

“Yes.” Kali stood abruptly. She took a last look at Nine, resting peacefully, then turned to Robin. “I’d love to, actually. It’ll be nice to do something normal for once. And you’re pretty... normal.” 

Oh.

_Oh!_

  
💾

  
Hot pink sun setting behind them, Robin and Kali made it back to Plutarch Avenue. With Robin in the car recounting her adventures with Steve and his dinguses in the Russian base underneath Starcourt, the two had been left giggling by the time they reached the front steps. Robin rang the doorbell on account of forgetting her house key before leaving the house. She laid back against the brick wall inside the alcove that housed her front door. Now, after everything, all they had to do was wait for someone to answer the door.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been out with another girl.” Kali grinned. “Thought I’d have something more to say.” 

Robin’s face scrunched up in delight. She’d never done this. Never even been with a girl in the first place to have done it. But the panicky, unsure feeling would be fleeting, she knew. She’d settle into it. As sure as their fingers intertwined perfectly, just as if they were made like puzzle pieces, Robin knew it was only the beginning. 

Seeing the looks of relief and adoration of her mother and stepfather as they opened the door—and simply because most things were too good to be true—Robin knew it was also the beginning of the end.

  
💾

  
Dinner passed slightly less awkwardly than Robin led herself to believe. Sure. There were excuses to be made and subjects to duck around. Some things even managed to surprise Robin. She had never guessed that Kali lived with some relatively normal people at some point. She just took the Steve route and abstained from college. Except, Kali chose to join a gang where Steve chose to get a minimum wage job. Some lies were told though, and one of those happened to be that Kali did not, indeed join a gang; rather, she got a job at her neighborhood's A&P. 

Honestly, Robin couldn’t count how many times she bit her tongue because of something Kali had said. She stopped herself from making her own lies. Kali proved to be much better at it than she. Where Robin would excuse her unsuccessfully catting around at the local non-carding bar with Steve as just a hangout at the movies(which never lasted as long as the five-hour endeavor), Kali could seamlessly thread her life experiences with the buttons of falsehoods. Everything tied neatly together, and all of a sudden, Robin brought her parents a wholesome girl from Illinois who worked at the A&P with her friend(who definitely no numbers in his name) and drove down to Indiana to see her old bestie, Steve Harrington. 

It wasn’t exactly the one-way road of learning about Kali. Edith and Samson chatted eagerly about a lot of her extracurricular activities, but mostly about Robin’s upcoming play. Though she was only doing a backstage job, her parents were overzealously lauding praise on her for getting even that as a part. Kali promised to attend.

With the clock reaching ten minutes to midnight and Edith and Samson announcing their drowsiness along with their gratitude for their guest’s company, Robin stole away to the living room with Kali. Her hand in hers felt so nice. So good. So sweet and so warm. After all this time. 

Fire lapped at their skin, illuminating them with a golden sheen. Robin couldn’t quite tell, but felt confident that an ensemble of pixies pirouetted in the flames before her. An illusion to be sure, but an artsy one that delighted her like a softly spoken magic spell.

Relishing in the warmth as if she’d never felt it before, Kali laid against the sofa, one leg bent and the other not, arms outstretched upon its seats. Though Robin had made herself comfortable, sitting against Kali’s right arm, she still fidgeted with her hands, twiddled her thumbs, and looked everywhere else but at the girl next to her. 

Okay. So. She got this far. What now?

She shook her fist slightly in the air, trying to work up the nerve to something. Anything. “I’m...” she trailed off, attempting to convey the fact that wow. Wow, it was unreal how much she wanted to kiss Kali right now. 

“You’re...?” Kali shifted slightly. “... jacking off the air?” 

Leaning her head back, Robin groaned in frustration. She scrambled away from touching Kali altogether though still sitting near. She was sure the stare she gave Kali was nothing short of stupidly serious.

“Are you mocking me?” she asked with a shaky voice. 

Kali looked away at the fire. “No. Just telling you what I’m seeing.” Robin drew near, gaining her attention again. She made no effort to move. “Ok. I’ll bite. What are you doing?”

With her left arm arched over Kali’s right and her right hand on Kali’s knee, Robin closed her eyes and angled herself into the right coordinates to meet Kali’s mouth with hers. Instead of lips, she found her face being met with a hand.

“Dude. Have you ever fucking kissed somebody?” Kali cackled, beside herself with laughter. 

Just a bit taken aback, Robin whipped back into a neutral sitting position. “Yes! Of course I have!” she replied after some time. 

Done with her laughing fit, Kali laid on her side facing Robin, head propped against the sofa. “Well, you’re never going to be good at it with a stick up your ass. I’m guessing they’ve never been people you wanted to kiss.” 

“It’s only been one.” Robin pressed her lips together briefly. “And no. But it was fairly good on my part. We were standing up.”

“Child’s play, really.” Kali sat up. “I mean, I’ve kissed so many people in so many places. It’s really hard to choose a favorite position or spot. On the neck in bed is really nice, but then there’s also the cheek as you’re heading out. There’s a specific window of time you have to hit for that one, but it’s worth the challenge. There’s also on the hand when you’re resting beside them on a couch. Sounds hard, I know, but it’s also worth it. Oh and...” she continued to prattle on as Robin clenched her fists, becoming more and more frustrated by the minute.

She couldn’t take it any longer. She had to do something. Robin’s open hands jolted forward as if to sandwich Kali’s cheeks. It shut her up at least, seeing Robin’s calculating stare. There was math in those blue eyes. Trajectories to hit and all. Straight-up graph paper to pinpoint those coordinates. Her fingers traced Kali’s soft jawline. She leaned down, hesitant, nervous, tentative, but with all the knowing in the world that this was everything she had wanted—everything she had needed. Kali looked up at her as if Robin had been the one to name herself after a goddess, dark eyes reverent, awestruck, begging. Robin closed her eyes and went for it, meeting Kali’s parted lips with her own, closing the gap once and for all. 

And then, when all was said and done, like a knight in shining armor, Kali scooped her up, and away they went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> strive to be first worst


	5. great gig in the sky.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin learns some really unfortunate things about her father. Kali has sex for probably like the third time in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really want to make it extremely clear that i did not just age robin up or anything for this chapter to exist. its more of a thematic thing that this is happening on her birthday . its not abt the implied sex. (also EDIT 5-30-20, how did no one correct me on her age here lmao i really was wildin thinkin nineteen would make since here but I’m gay i cannot be expected to math)
> 
> also yes this song is also in my top three. i cannot decide if i like this one or time more. theres just something about clare torry vocalizing for four minutes that really pinks my floyd.

“You actually listen to this?”

Robin blinked at _Killer Queen_ playing softly from the tape deck on her dresser. She gave a short chuckle. “Yeah, why not? You know a better song by Queen?” God, her face had to be super red.

“I just didn’t think you were that bitchin’,” Kali backpedaled. She eyed the tape deck with mild interest. “I never had one of these.”

“I got it a couple years back. I only had a Fleetwood Mac tape and a Michael Jackson for a while. But Jonathan makes mixtapes, so Steve had him make me one for... I don’t know. He joked about it being like, ‘The Ultimate Tape of Seduction’ or something,” she said as if she were making the name up. 

But unfortunately, she wasn’t—it was right on the mixtape in sharpie marker in Steve’s chicken scratch he called “the writing of a heartthrob”. Robin played it when she was feeling against the world sometimes, huddled in a blanket, drinking hot chocolate, and pretending that there was another girl behind her, arms wrapped around her shoulders, and a hot cheek resting against hers. Sometimes she wished it hadn’t had such a moniker, knowing she’d never use it for its true purpose. 

Until now, she supposed. And even then, she wasn’t sure Kali was being seduced so much as she was being confused. 

But confusion didn’t seem to stop Kali from taking her jacket off and dancing toward Robin, who had reserved herself to the edge of the bed to awkwardly reflect on their kiss. Robin was sure she must have looked like a ditz, letting her mouth hang open upon seeing Kali’s definition once again thanks to her tank top. Kali held out a hand and pulled Robin up with a force that almost sent the both of them to the floor. Thankfully, Kali was pretty sturdy, as short as she was. And without any high tops or combat boots between them, Robin basked in the few inches she had over the other girl. 

As _Killer Queen_ transitioned into _I Want to Know What Love Is_ , Robin found herself bent slightly as she and Kali slowdanced, heads in the crooks of necks, hand in hand, hands on waists. Stiff as she was, making sure not to let her hand slip down below the lower back, Robin couldn’t help but wonder what her life would’ve been like if she could’ve had this for all those school dances in the past. She might’ve been happier, that’s for sure. Dancing with Tammy Thompson “as just friends” or “as a joke” didn’t compare to having a girl in her arms, knowing she was hers to kiss and hold. 

Robin spun Kali around and dipped her, feeling confident as hell for once. But when tasked with the kiss afterward, she froze, a doe in the headlights of Kali’s deep black eyes, flecks of gold swirling in the gravity of her irises. Kali managed to flip the situation around, dipping Robin instead. She put passion into her movements, locking her chin against Robin’s, showing her what anti-gravity felt like. 

💾

If Robin had a quarter for every time she’d heard that she’d be reserving a spot for herself in Hell, she’d have had... at least enough quarters to have a pretty good day at the arcade. 

A ticket to the fiery inferno supposedly belonged to her now—not that she’d ever put her eggs in any basket of beliefs. Felt pretty good, actually. Better than anything she’d ever imagined. Her face erupted into a red that burned like lava when a rock of the mattress created an avalanche of "borrowed" Playboy magazines under the bed; but, overall she rated it as a pleasurable experience.

The more Robin entwined her fingers in Kali’s seemingly endless fountain of hair, the more butterflies flocked back to Robin’s chest, having migrated elsewhere in the heat of the moment. Eyelids drooping, the insomnia of the thrill threatened to desert her, right when the night had just softened into a velvety black. 

Then, came Kali’s voice to lift Robin from the lull of the silence. “What scares you the most?” she drawled, somewhat muffled with her cheek resting on Robin’s bare bosom. 

Damn. Getting all philosophical and shit at one o’ clock in the A.M. Around this time of night, Robin usually found herself drooling on her pillow, having to flip it over, and slowly adjusting to the cold side of the cloth. Deep internal thought never once penned the agenda for her. 

“I guess...” Robin stared up at the ceiling. Old strips of paste hung there, missing the glow-in-the-dark stars she’d taken down when she decided she had “grown up” at the ripe age of fourteen. She swallowed and chose elsewhere to stare. Out of the window seemed a good choice. “I guess I would have to say losing the people around me,” she decided. 

“What about you? Losing yourself? Losing your _sense of self?_ Doesn’t that scare you too? Aren’t you afraid of dying?” Kali asked, quiet and somewhat disturbed as if she’d thought about it a few times before. 

But Robin answered honestly. She looked at the moon as she spoke, not because it was prettier than Kali, but because Kali was prettier than the moon, and she’d surely falter if her eyes were on her. “No. I’m not afraid to die. I’m good to go anytime. I don’t care. Why should I be afraid of dying? We all gotta die at some point.” Unabashed questions called for unabashed answers.

“Fuck... didn’t expect you to be so bitchin’,” Kali breathed. Robin herself hadn’t expected to have been so prolific.

“My turn,” Robin declared. She simpered down at Kali. “How do I know none of this is an illusion? Like I’m not secretly in a bathtub in ice, and you’re not taking my organs?” 

Kali groaned as she pushed herself up from her laze, pressing a soft, prompt and plump kiss on Robin’s lips. She sighed, coming back to rest with her chest against Robin’s, spurring a new rush of butterflies to Robin’s bust. “That’s how,” Kali said, closing her eyes. “You have senses other than sight.”

Robin nodded as much as she could afford to without disturbing Kali’s venture toward slumber. “OK,” she muttered under her breath.

She could’ve stayed like this forever. The warmth, the pleasure... it made her want to scream, knowing she’d never had it until now. It felt like the best dream—the dream to end all dreams. And the best part was, she could have the dream again, if Kali would have her. 

After some time, conversation resumed once more as Kali shifted again. “So, your mother is colorblind,” Kali stated, sleep clearly affecting her. So it appeared she’d noticed her mother’s clashing outfit. For a moment Robin wanted to react with offense, but seeing as Kali was a master of illusion and color, Robin figured she must have been serious.

“Yes,” Robin replied.

“What happened?” 

“Don’t know. Says she went colorblind when she was still hanging out with my dad.” 

“Did your dad have anything to say about it?”

“Never met him.”

“Samson’s not...?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Robin closed her eyes. “No, he’s my stepdad. Barely. Like, yeah, they’re married, but he dates other men and women. Mom’s not into that kind of thing, but she supports him. They used to just be best friends before dad came and left. Kind of like me and Steve, except I wouldn’t marry Steve. Wouldn’t kiss him if you dared me to.”

“I bet not after...” 

Robin smiled. “No. Definitely not after this. Samson’s a good guy, though— y’know—to have stuck around with my mom after everything with my dad.”

“What’s up with your dad?” Robin felt Kali shift slightly. 

“He’s dead for starters. Just a week after mom found out she was pregnant. Found his blazing remains in a crashed car just off the freeway. Who knows where he was going. Who knows why. Who gives a shit, honestly.”

“They identified it as him?” 

“Hell, Kali, I never got to see it with my own eyes seeing as I was in the womb at the time. But mom said it was weird. He had a... uh... I think it was a mole next to his eye that the dead man just didn’t have. But, it was his car, his belongings, his clothes... she couldn’t deny it was him.”

“Gotcha.”

“So yeah, I don’t really know much about him.” Robin sighed, catching herself. “Sorry, have I talked too much about the men in my life?”

“You haven’t told me much about Steve.” 

“You haven’t told me much about Nine,” Robin shot back.

“Nine... where would I start?” 

“The beginning is usually my favorite place.” 

“Not much to say that Nine would be comfortable telling himself, granted he had the time to spin that yarn.”

“How long of a backstory are we talking?”

“Like, a whole sweater.”

Robin giggled to start but ended up laughing probably a little louder than she should’ve. Just below the octave that her parents would hear, but just enough to make Kali turn onto her side.

“Damn that sucks. I wanna hear the sweater,” Robin chuckled, coming down from the high of the remark.

“It’s not unlikely that you will someday. Nine just has to get comfortable around you. Not even I’ve known him for too long.”

“Honestly it’s just funny because I’m not used to that... I mean, I’m the same way with Steve. Steve... is an open book. I dunno. The deepest thing he ever told me was that he used to tell people his parents were astronauts and that that’s why they’re never around. I still don’t fully grasp what they actually do.”

“What _do_ they do?”

“I still don’t fully grasp it. In other words, I _don’t know_. But they’re gone a lot, and Steve and I have free reign to smoke as much Mary Jane as we can shove in a couple blunts.”

“So you’re no stranger to illusion.”

“I thought Steve was a luscious mermaid when we went swimming in his pool once, yes.”

“Fun,” Kali mumbled, nestling her cheek in the crook of Robin’s neck.

Robin allowed her eyes to open, just to squint down at Kali. “Is... is Nine... fun?” 

“He has his moments. We stole some Twinkies yesterday. All he had to do was pay for it with the rocks I macgyvered, but all he could focus on was the whole idea of them being any sort of phallic. Of course, they do look like penises. I can’t blame him for choking up like he did. I’d be embarrassed too, I suppose. But, I don’t think the cashier needed Nine’s laundry list on the reasons he certainly wasn’t gay... despite how loud he was in the snack aisle, going on about how cute said cashier was...” 

“You mean Danny? At the Speedway? Absolutely not.”

“Right?” Kali laughed. “Dude had a Beatles haircut.”

“So gross! Nine is way out of his league.” 

“I told him that. I’ve never been a good wingwoman though. I’m more of the D.I.Y. type.”

“Oh, I’m absolutely the wingman type. Steve’s been aching over this girl Nancy and her boyfriend Jonathan. I’ve been helping with that.”

“I thought Steve already had a boyfriend?”

“No. Not yet, at least. He likes both of them.”

“A dangerous game.”

Rich coming from one of the most dangerous people Robin ever had the good graces to fall into bed with. She also happened to be the only people Robin ever had the good graces to fall into bed with. Still.

Robin smiled faintly as the question came to her. Probably the most dangerous question she could muster. But she’d always been curious. 

“What was the name of that guy Nine killed the other day?” 

Immediately, Kali stopped breathing. She came off of Robin completely. Robin opened her eyes to see Kali above her as if ready to go another round. This wasn’t the case though because she had an expression marked with a cold seriousness unbecoming of such a passion. “I’d really rather you not ask me that. I had to see that man every day I walked out of the rainbow room. I don’t want to think about him again.”

“Why?” the word fell so helplessly off Robin’s tongue.

“Because.”

“Because w—“

“Goddamnit Robin,” Kali growled. “Please—“ her voice broke “— don’t ask me that again. I’m really trying to let all of that go.”

Without a word, Robin nodded. Kali came back down, laying a possessive arm across Robin’s chest. 

Now they subjected themselves to silence. No more questions. No more talking. Only silence. Sweet, sweet, horrible silence.

💾

Something compelled Robin’s eyes to open. She had yet to figure out what, exactly. Perhaps she’d stirred because Kali had moved against the wall, back to Robin’s hip. Maybe it was because a stray cloud had left the moon’s path, giving way to the white light streaming through the window. Could’ve been her natural circadian rhythm. Robin wasn’t too sure. All she knew was that some internal monologue full of only screaming pounded at her chest to get up, get up, get up and go. 

Leave, it said. She didn’t know who she slept with. Didn’t recognize her. Or maybe she did, and that’s what scared her. 

After swinging her legs off the edge of the bed, she checked her clock on the bedside table. It was six in the morning. About the usual time to get up. Something felt off about it though. On a Sunday she’d sleep pretty far into one in the afternoon. Maybe it was just the company. 

And as bad as she felt leaving Kali in her room, asleep, naive to Robin’s departure, Robin knew she couldn’t pass up the chance to explore the lab without constant watch. She’d have free rein and the ability to roam wherever she pleased. She would be getting answers. 

As she dressed herself, she constructed a narrative which she hoped to prove true. It would make sense, she thought, if her father had worked there once before he died. Perhaps he was a double agent, doing something at the laundromat, and also working on... well, Cain, it seemed like from the cryo room. Then, he did something the lab didn’t like, and they murdered him, making it look like a car crash. 

_So why didn’t Kali want to tell her who they murdered_ , Robin asked herself as she slipped on her shoes. Answer was obvious: Steve’s dad. The Harrington’s should’ve been back by now and questioning their son’s disappearance. But, Samson nor her mother had reported either of the Harrington’s calling. Nothing like this had ever happened to Steve, so it seemed cause for alarm. That is, unless Mr. Harrington was shot dead and Mrs. Harrington chalked her son’s disappearance up as tandem to it. This had to be why they were gone so long and always for some unknown reason. Kali wouldn’t tell Robin because of how close she was to Steve. Perfect. Brilliant. Honestly, a brain teaser for the ages.

Nothing got past the lesbian Alan Turing. Not Russians. Not Kali. 

She packed a bag, took Samson’s Walkman and her Ultimate Tape of Seduction, and set off.

💾

Biking to the lab took a little longer than Robin anticipated. Coming to a rolling stop, she pulled up her sewn-up sleeve to look at the watch she’d pilfered from Samson for today and today only. She usually had no need to keep time. Today, she anticipated Kali coming after her in T-minus two hours from now. Currently, it was two in the afternoon. Kali would likely have awoken around one and would take an hour to sort her thoughts out. It’d take two hours to make the drive. Robin had a good window of time to get her questions answered.

If Cain came around, Robin had one solution for him and his name was Samson’s Gun. Robin didn’t know the species of guns and she didn’t like coming up with intricate names for things. Maybe it was a pistol. Probably a pistol. Whatever it was, she kept it and its ten bullets concealed in an outside pocket of her knapsack. Cain wouldn’t stand a chance against her years of absolutely no training of gun use besides one reluctant hunting trip with Samson. 

Golden light shone in through the broken glass windows of the lab. White walls became pale yellow with ochre stains glistening in the sun. Robin tiptoed around the glass shards, having noticed them now without Kali or Nine to distract her. A shiver fell down her spine, and she could almost taste the bitter cold, even in the warmth of the light outside. 

Before skipping town, she’d gotten a cup of coffee and a danish at the coffee shop just across the road from the arcade. She wished she could be there again, chatting with Nina Gillespie from band at the register, warm in the shop, warm in the conversation, warm in the taste of a freshly brewed french vanilla roast and a freshly baked pastry, warm. 

Though the electric was back on, Robin maligned the elevators even now, choosing to make her trek up the stairs. By the time she got back home, she probably wouldn’t have any leg strength. She’d take the fall break to get it back. For now, she became dead set on making these stairs her bitch. 

Ten sets of stairs and two right turns later, she found herself face to face with the Rainbow Room. Not so clever a name. Just a door with a rainbow sticker on it. Looked like a child had stuck it on. The lower left corner was peeling upward. Robin’s fingers grazed the freezing metal. They slid down to the knob. Her arm pushed forward, but nothing happened. She tried again, and nothing. It wasn’t locked... physically. Robin shoved her hands in her jacket pockets. This was a room personal to Kali. As nosy as she usually happened to be, Robin couldn’t breach that privacy. 

Instead, her eyes fell to the door on her right. Her knees threatened to buckle as she read the plaque next to it. Small print as it was, the last name appeared plain as day. She stumbled toward it, eyes wide in disbelief. How hadn’t she seen it before?

_Dr. Fulton Buckley_

Plain as day. There it was. There was her father’s office. 

Though her hand shook, she managed to turn the knob by guiding her elbow with her left hand, to the right, and finally, forward. Frost of the room’s disuse hit her like a ton of frozen bricks. She’d managed to avoid Cain thus far, but secretly wished he would show up to warm her bones with his flames. Just for a second, and then she’d probably run. While she thought about him, she locked the door behind her, making sure he’d have to beat down the door to get to her. 

Her father’s office gave off an atmosphere she expected of a banker. He had a green banker’s lamp still glowing green right on his mahogany desk, after all. She turned on the lights, illuminating the clutter of papers strewn across the floor. A half-empty folder sat in the corner, probably thrown across the room during a fall. Bookshelves lined the left and right walls, filled with biologies of different beasts, the DSM's I-III, three-ring binders of information probably regarding whatever he did for Hawkins Laboratory, and a couple yearbooks. A photo of her mother and father at the park sat on one of the shelves, framed in a beautiful gilded metal. And despite the glass being broken, Robin took it, slipping it into her knapsack. 

Besides the lamp, a PC also resided on the desk. Free from the knapsack she sat in front of the desk, Robin threw herself into the rolling chair behind the desk. Upon closer examination, the PC had a disk drive which laid open. A floppy disk waited in the drive. Waiting for someone to push the drive in. Luckily for the disc, Robin was exactly that person.

The PC hummed into life, chugging as it processed whatever just got shoved into it. A teal screen showed up with a request for a password. Robin tried her name and birthday again, but this time it didn’t take. Fuck it, time for the wife’s name. Or at least, lover’s name. Thankfully, “Edith” worked. A grey bar appeared next, blue squares filling its space one by one as the PC loaded up the disc file. Robin could barely sit still, anticipation eating at her like a million leeches who’ve starved for billions of years before finally latching onto her skin. 

Static hissed out of the PC’s sad excuse for a speaker under the monitor. Just lines for speakers. Robin shook her head at how low-tech her dad had been. Could’ve hooked it up to a speaker system. Tsk tsk.

A huff alerted Robin to the now black screen. There was no footage, only nothingness and white noise. Robin leaned forward as if something could suddenly spring into view to entertain her eyes. Her nails dug into her skin. This was it. This was the enigma she’d avoided for so long. Now, after all this time, all this mystery, here he was. 

> “Oh, sweet apple turnovers,” he blurted out. Great choice of first words. “No-one will ever understand the pain of transferring audio from a cassette to a floppy disk. Certainly not whoever’s listening, and certainly not Craig in management. Dang it, Craig, this one’s for you. What a donut hole. I’m not looking forward to compiling this. Anyway,” 

Robin’s heart fluttered, mesmerized by the fact that she had the pleasure to listen at all, no matter what happened in the timespan of the audio. He had a geeky voice, nasally, raspy, and whining. He was young. Not much older than Steve, probably. Robin had sort of imagined he’d sound like Darth Vader, just because it seemed like it’d be more interesting than the real thing. It was a familiar sound, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why.

> “I’m starting a log. Dr. Brenner says the state wants reports of what we’re doing and he can’t read my—and I quote—‘goddamn fucking chickscratch,’ so I’m doing this a cappella. No pens or paper. Here we go with day one.” 

He breathed out. Nervous. Robin felt her own heart sort of stop and resume. 

> “It’s June 3rd, 1964! It’s my first day working at Hawkins National Laboratory! I’ve just flown in from Harvard. Got my degree and I’m sure mom’s definitely proud up there somewhere. I figured I’d take dad’s approach and head down to Los Alamos. Guess life sent me in a different direction. With me in tow, we’ll be hammering the Ruskies back in no time! ... er, I hope. See, I’m not really sure what they want me to do. I’m part of the creative department I guess. They want some kind of super soldier like Captain America. I don’t think I can give them that. Maybe if I talk out loud and brainstorm, I’ll get something together.” 

He prattled on about different superhero ideas from Marvel and DC, finally tiring himself out and ending that specific recording. Robin hung onto every word. Everything mattered.

> “Log date: July 16th, 1964. I know it’s been a while, but this is the first time anything important enough has happened for me to personally log. I don’t want to waste your time talking about how I’m still just getting coffee for Gary down the hall when I’ve got this big fancy bachelor’s degree. 
> 
> “I knew I could do more! So I told Brenner, I said, ‘Hey, you got any new projects you need anybody on?’ He said no. But...! He did have this old project he needed somebody to take over! Somebody with a bachelor’s of science in psychology like me! I hit the jackpot. It’s... uh... it’s sitting in my office. It’s a weird black box. Kinda janky looking if you ask me. It’s got a computer screen on it and just a couple red buttons with a directional pad as the interface. 
> 
> “Brenner said one day they’ll ‘put them on the market’. I don’t see how. He said ‘Fulton, don’t question me,’ and I said ‘OK.’ I’m questioning him in secret. So as I questioned him in secret, he came to me, one night, like a leaf that settles on your car window before rolling off, and explained it all to me. ‘MK Ultra,’ they call the whole shebang. ‘Super soldiers to fight the Ruskies’, yadda yadda yadda. ‘But’—and this is a very important but—‘but these will be secret soldiers,’ he said. Said they’d be... hypnotized by the box or trained, at least by it. They’d know, but they wouldn’t know, but we would know that they didn’t know that they know. Something to that affect. 
> 
> “I’m a little iffy on the whole... hypnotizing people thing... don’t really like doing things against the wills of others. It’s kinda creepy! We’ve got plenty of people willing to enlist... not sure why anybody needs to be forced into getting some freaky mind powers they don’t want. But whatever. I’m basically... basically an intern.” He sighed. “At least they’re giving me this.” 

Robin leaned back and took another look around the room. What he was describing had to be an arcade cabinet. It long since disappeared from the room. The description of it reminded her of the black cabinet at Palace back in the day. Hypnotic was definitely a word she would’ve used to describe it.

> “Log date: July 18th, 1964. We finally got that son of a danish lugged down to the laundromat. Oh! Did I mention I own the laundromat now? Fulton Buckley—Clothes Washer. That’s what they’ll call me from now on. I’ll get my master’s in two years and then I’ll be Dr. Fulton Buckley—Dr. Clothes Washer. Everyone around town’s really happy for me. I’m the man people can trust to get the laundry done. I control the machines after all.
> 
> “Speaking of machines—that... thing... they’re calling it a ‘Cabinet’. Doesn’t look like any cabinet I’ve ever seen. Guys in the creative department say they hooked it up with ‘hyperrealistic graphics.’ Not sure how you can get more realistic than realistic. I asked to try it, but they said it was off-limits to staff. ‘If I know what it does, it might not work,’ they said. Guess I gotta sucker some sad sap into looking at the screen for a couple hours every day. But from what I’ve seen so far, only moms and grannies come in here. It’s gonna be a long couple of months, that’s for sure.
> 
> “Log date: July 30th, 1964. I finally found a candidate! I’ll tell you who it is, but I’ve got to run you through the day first. 
> 
> “Seemed like it’d be a normal day of middle-aged women and the occasional ruffian who got blood on his jacket but then—then, they came in. ‘Well, who’s “they”’ you may ask. ‘They’ are Edith and Samson. They’d come in to do laundry for Edith’s mom, who’d fallen sick. But I was in band with them for four years! Brass section, baby! I know them! Oh, we hit it off like fireworks! We didn’t talk much in school, but we talked about how much we missed those days—not that army general band director though—and it honestly felt like I’d known them my entire life. I’ve never laughed so hard. 
> 
> “So it pains me to say that I took them to the back room. I had to. They were the only viable candidates I’d ever had. I told them I had this cool machine I’d brought down with me when I came back from Massachusetts. ‘It’s called a ‘Cabinet’ and it’s a game on a screen,’ I said. Those exact words. That’s what creative control told me to say, after all. Edith was more eager to try than Samson. 
> 
> “I let him go first though, and he hated it. I did too, but I didn’t let on. It didn’t seem that interesting to me. Looked like a ship that was shooting at oncoming targets. Every time the ship crashed, the lights flashed in bright colors. Samson came away with a nasty headache. Said he couldn’t see right. I said it was natural, but I didn’t actually know that. Edith tried and came away fine. She loved it, actually. She played it for an hour, in fact. So, I asked her to come by tomorrow. 
> 
> “We’ll see where this goes.
> 
> “Log date: August 12th, 1964. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been hanging out with Edith in the back room of the laundromat more than the front desk. I don’t think I actually need to be there unless I’m answering questions. Everything’s coin-based, after all. It’s a better use of my time than sitting around reading Batman comics. I think I will take some time to read tomorrow though. I really wish I had a Robin of my own to help me with all this.
> 
> “Edith’s really nice. She’s got a soft voice. It gets softer as the evening passes. I watch her play, and I take notes surreptitiously. I tell her I’m just sketching her. I’ll never let her see the sketches. One day I’ll sketch her for real. I might let her see it. 
> 
> “So far, she’s reported slight headaches, and a little bit of dizziness. I had to drive her home one day because her vision blurred. Against the wishes of Dr. Brenner, I asked if she wanted to stop. Wanted to quit playing altogether. I was fully ready to destroy the machine. But she said ‘no,’ and god, I don’t know why she did. It’s addictive. I can see it already. Hawkins Laboratory has created a monster.
> 
> “Log date: September 24th, 1964. I was supposed to be back at Harvard by now, getting my master’s degree. Dr. Brenner says my work with the Cabinet is too important to leave to someone else. He suspects... suspects the reason Edith is staying is for me... I don’t see it. I think he just wants to keep an eye on me. Men in black suits pass the laundromat sometimes. They stare in through the window as they walk. I stare back.
> 
> “Edith’s getting worse. I have to drive her home every night now. She plays for hours. I take my notes. She’s gotten to level one hundred. I wish I knew where it ended—if it ended. I wish this all could end. I don’t like seeing her like this. Obsessive. Addicted. Deranged for this game.
> 
> “Samson came in yesterday, looking for her. She’d blown him off to play the game. I couldn’t do anything. Either I could encourage her to leave and have to take note of that in my report to Dr. Brenner, or encourage her to stay and become a willing ringleader in all this if I’m not already. I think this spelled the end of their relationship. He yelled for a couple minutes about how she’s spending all her time here. Then he left unceremoniously. I... may have suggested quietly that Edith go, but she wouldn’t. She explained that... that he was just jealous... of me.
> 
> “Truthfully, I don’t know how to feel about that.
> 
> “Log date: November 7th, 1964. Edith is sharper than I first thought. She’s known I was taking notes this whole time. I must be a pretty bad liar. However, she thinks I’m just testing this game out on her before we get them out on the market. She says anybody would ‘pay a dollar to play’ if they could. I said ‘that’s a lot of money.’ But she said it’d be worth it. I guess I believe her.
> 
> “I’m not sure how to sleep at night knowing the reason she keeps coming back is to be a guinea pig. My ego kept telling me it was her adoration of me—maybe she liked me—maybe one day we’d have a relationship. How fuc— how stupid... could I have been to really think a girl like her and a... man or monster— I don’t know what I am... could ever—“

The audio suddenly cut off at that point and resumed. Seems he had his meltdown off-screen.

> “Log date: February 23rd, 1965. I finally told her how I felt. I’m in a pretty good position right now, so I’ve been mulling it over for a couple weeks and... I did it. She kissed me. I was over the moon, I was.
> 
> “Dr. Brenner says the experiment will be over by the end of the month. I can stop the charade and come back to the lab. The only problem is... well, what do I tell Edith? Here we are, one kiss under our belt and hopefully more to come... and I can’t tell her anything. I’ll be quitting the laundry job and going full time at the lab. 
> 
> “Maybe I’ll be a pastry chef... in another town. That should do her for now.
> 
> “Log date: March 1st, 1965. I’ve been promoted! They’re giving me the reins on the new project. The latest and greatest super soldier! Because screw that Cabinet stuff I almost ruined someone’s life over, right? 
> 
> “They’ve updated me on a portal to another dimension the lab boys found. I’d heard the rumors around the office space, but it’s all pretty exciting if you ask me. All this nuclear jazz is pretty lost on me. My dad might’ve worked with Dr. Oppenheimer, but I didn’t get so lucky. Every time they talk about it, it just flies over my head. Soars, in fact. I am comfortably naive. 
> 
> “But they say a lab guy ventured into the hole they opened. Came back out screaming ‘Bloody Mary!’ Saw something that scared the living bejesus out of him. I asked him to draw it for me. Or... describe it to me. He’s not very good at drawing. Anyway— the result is... pretty gruesome. That’s not because of his awful drawing skills. Though I will admit, that didn’t help very much.
> 
> “It had no face to speak of, only a mouth that peeled open like an orange... peel. It was strong and limber. The mouth was the focal point. He said when it opened, it had rows of teeth like a shark and a screech that could split your eardrums in two. I asked if it had split his eardrums in two. He said no. 
> 
> “So I think the best action is to create something to blend in. A beast just like it. But it works for us... and if it doesn’t want to work for us... well the lab guy said it didn’t like the cigarette lighter he’d smuggled in. How about a guy who can set himself on fire! Not hard to do... just replace bodily sweat with lighter fluid and you’re good to go. I think. 
> 
> “I majored in psychology, not biology.”
> 
> So this was him, then. Everything sorted itself out. He created the idea of Nine and Cain and then went and died. Then Nine went after the guy who actually put everything together. Good. So then, why did there have to be more?
> 
> “Log date: March 15th, 1965. Project Cain and Abel is a-go. The lab boys have figured out the DNA patterns they need for the mutations. Of course, I’m the only one calling it Project Cain and Abel. Everyone else liked Craig’s ‘Project Scorched Earth’ and ‘Project Doppelgänger.’ Screw Craig and his good names. He makes it sound like they’re separate.
> 
> “I’ve got better news, though. Edith and I have taken our relationship to dating! We’ve had a couple dates since I last logged and wow. Wow. Wow! I’ve never felt like this before. To be seen! Really seen! It’s amazing. Defies all reality. And I don’t even have to have the cabinet to see her. I can visit any time I like! She can’t visit me though. I just sleep in my office. 
> 
> “Ignoring the security breach... it’d just be kind of weird anyway. 
> 
> “Log date: August 11th, 1965. This is going to be my strangest log yet. It seems... after all this time... Edith having played the Cabinet has had some odd side-effects. I can’t even begin to describe, but I will try to put it in the most laymen terms I can. I’ve already recorded the report. I had to. I can’t just spout this medical jargon on my own. The lab boys had to help me out with it.
> 
> “So, for this personal log, I’ll try to explain again. She, um... well, I suppose I should preface this by explaining our living conditions. We’ve been living together for the past month. It’s been nice, except... things have been sort of freaky. There’s things I haven’t told her yet, and somehow she just knows them. She knew my favorite coffee blend is Folger’s house blend, my favorite television show is Star Trek, and that I prefer toast without the crust. I’m not that easy to read, I should hope. 
> 
> “But the strangest occurrence by far was this. It was three hours until I needed to be at work. It’s a two hour drive. She said I should go on. Said... said she got the feeling someone was messing up my work without me being there. I wondered what she knew of pastry-making, my made-up profession, that she thought someone could do such a thing. I left at her behest, and lo and behold, Dr. Brenner was sitting in my desk chair, going though my files.
> 
> “That’s another story for another day... but I wonder how she knew this was going on. I’ve never heard of a real case of clairvoyance like this. I can only chalk it up to the Cabinet. Her vision has been in and out lately. She can barely see at night. Her migraines have worsened, especially when she’s been watching television. Yesterday she told me a red shirt was green. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on her.
> 
> “Log date: September 30th, 1965. Edith is colorblind. My heart is broken. I’ve humbly requested to resign from Hawkins National Laboratory. I cannot leave unless I want to lose my life and hers. They’ve threatened to take her and experiment like they’ve done with Ms. Pratchett. 
> 
> “What can I do?
> 
> “Log date: December 16th, 1965. Samson came by the other day. He actually had the nerve to accuse me of cheating on Edith. As if I would ever. He asked me to leave her. As if I could ever do that. ‘I’m no good for her,’ he said. And I agree. I’m not. She deserves someone who can be there for her a hundred percent of the time. Or at least, a good fifty. I’ve spent countless nights at the lab. No wonder Samson thought...
> 
> “Well, anyhow, I’ve devised a plan to take myself out of her life. Out of everybody’s life. The lab boys have helped me concoct it. I’ll be faking my own death. I’ll remove myself from the public record. It’s all very brilliant. She won’t have to worry about me anymore. The date is set for April 23rd, 1967. I’ll be gone, and she can move on from me. 
> 
> “Maybe Samson will pick up the pieces.” 

_Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck this wasn’t right._ This was how it went? Really? He couldn’t have just braved it out? He took the coward’s option and just? Just left? Like that? Robin’s finger hovered over the eject button. Not now. Not when it was getting deep. No amount of teardrops on the keyboard could get her to press eject. She’d let her hand hang in the air.

> “Log date: April 16th, 1967. She is pregnant. She already knew I would ask to name her Robin.”

_No._

> “Log date: April 23rd, 1967. As far as she or anybody knows, I am dead.”

_No!_

> “Log date: October 5th, 1967. I got the newspaper today. Hello, Robin.”

_no..._

> “Log date: March 1st, 1969. We’ve acquired a Londoner with strange powers. They say she can create illusions with her mind. The lab boys are calling her ‘Eight.’ I’m not sure when the number scheme came into being. Since Project Cain and Abel came only two years after her birth, I’ve decided to call them Nine-C and Nine-A. 
> 
> “Log date: June 4th, 1975.” His voice had become grittier, hardened. “I’m not doing much these days. Just paperwork. Getting coffee with Gary. Having what’s practically a monthly therapy session with Dr. Brenner that he calls ‘just business.’ I’ve become accustomed to ignoring the blood-soaked bread I’ve seen around here. I think Eight escaped recently. Good for her... good for her. At least one of us made it out.
> 
> “Log date: July 19th, 1980. They’ve started putting the Cabinets in the arcades. There’s one in Hawkins. I hope Edith nor Robin have come across it. It’d be wishful thinking to hope they’d be out of Hawkins altogether.
> 
> “Log date: February 25th, 1981. I heard a weird noise above me the other day. The lab boys say they’ve had to grab Nine-A from the rafters countless times to run tests. I think I’ve heard him in the vents. I had to escort him to the lab a couple times. I recall Eleven throwing him against a wall a few years back when he fell from the pipes. It made the picture of me and Edith fall. Had to clean up all that broken glass. 
> 
> “Nine-A reports that he and Nine-C have a very strained relationship and that that’s why he’s there—to hide from him. If the lab boys didn’t favor Nine-C for experimentation, this probably wouldn’t be the case. I’ve tried to argue in favor of equal testing or at least investigating further into the matter. It’s fallen on deaf ears. 
> 
> “Log date: November 6th, 1983. Eleven has gone missing. I’m staying in my office. I don’t want any part of this.
> 
> “Log date: December 1st, 1984. They’ve closed the lab for good. They took Nine-A and a couple other live experiments with them down to Cape Canaveral. I put Nine-C in cryogenic stasis for his own good. I’m staying here with him. He’s my monster, after all. I don’t deserve to be out there with the rest of them, living a normal life. I know I’ve hurt people. They’re the ones who are blind to their own mistakes. Not me.”

There was too much of a pause for comfort. This meant the end of the disk. So why did it hurt so badly when her father’s last-words-but-not-last-words-to-her were “fuck everybody” and not “I love you”? 

Robin shoved herself away from the chair. She stood for a disproportionate amount of time in the middle of the room, her converse having crunched the papers beneath them. If anybody had been there to observe her stance, they’d have noticed the veins in her forearms, ready to pop from how hard she clenched her fists. She just wanted to regain her composure before she left. That was it. All she had to do was stand there and calm down. 

But she couldn’t calm down. How could anyone be calm when she’d just fucked the girl who killed her father? She’d given everything to her. Everything. And she just... left out the part of her backstory where she killed her father. 

Tears welled up in her eyes before breaking free of her will, following a track down her ruddy cheeks. Then, all at once, the searing stream blinded her, and she found a way to the floor, falling back against the desk and clutching her hair with such a death grip one would think her ready to pull it all out, grimacing as she tried to fight the feeling. She released her head to pound her fists against the floor. But, nothing could stop the tears from coming. 

All these years. All these FUCKING years. He was alive and he never came around ONCE. Just to check up on her. Just to EXPLAIN. Because GOD FORBID some people have any human FUCKING emotions around here. 

Gasping and choking for breath, Robin wailed against her control. It was just something deep inside her biding its time. She wailed until she found herself, laying in the floor, knees held tight to her chest like her life depended on it. She screamed with the force of a possessed woman expelling a demon. 

She quieted, sniveling.

Sincerely, fuck him. 

All these years and nothing to show for it except a screaming child on his empty office floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have to say this. like rn.
> 
> i very much headcanon her dad to look like rick moranis circa little shop of horrors i caNNOT see anybody else being him not even ethan himself i am so sorry for putting this image into your head.
> 
> also i think we need to open up an investigation into steves parents. who are they. where are they. _when_ are they????? the truth is out there.
> 
> (also im really ngl idk if i got my timeline right, so feel free to correct me in the comments)


	6. money.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kali wakes up alone. All Nine can think about is breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> money doesnt slap. the oldies station _(you know who you are, **REDACTED.3FM** )_should play great gig instead. and thats that on that. 
> 
> also Oops! kali POV. 
> 
> robin is too busy w daddy issues to have an inner monologue this chapter.

Clutching air, Kali found herself alone.   
_(like always)_

Black eyes roamed the bed which had been made neatly around her. She rose up to survey the room. Robin’s closet door had been opened without being shut back. The door handle was in an unlocked position. By all accounts, Robin woke up without her. Nothing informed her otherwise. Not even a note to go off of.

Kali slid out of the comfortable twin bed. She knew she’d miss it. But, it couldn’t be helped. She had to move on. Robin would, eventually. Kali retrieved the frantically discarded clothing and slipped each piece on as she came to them. Kneeling on the bed, she analyzed the windowsill. Still under the lull of sleep, her fingers found the lock, and with a bit of grit, twisted it open. She opened it and rolled out of what was thankfully a one-story home. After shutting it back, she trailed around the house and having unlocked her van, burned some very hot rubber. 

And honestly, what in the hell was she thinking? She had no emotional attachment to that girl before now. None. None at all. Her responsibilities didn’t fall in line with anyone with a Venus symbol anymore. Her gang dispersed a long time ago. The goddess of revenge hungered for a little too much. They feared her voracious appetites. Couldn’t blame them. Wasn’t like it would be quelled anytime soon. Eventually something would pop off in the wrong way.   
_(and it did. and you paid dearly for it.)_

Because really, who wasn’t driven by fear? Only a few people. The money-lovers. The reason she was in this whole shitfest to begin with. Government assholes looking to get a paycheck. Looking to start a war to make money. Fuck the Cold War. Fuck the other dimension and whatever fucking profits they were looking to turn. Fuck MK Ultra. It was all just bullshit to fill some pockets with money to burn. 

No, she had to remind herself though. _(some people weren’t driven by fear or money. some were driven by love)_. See: Love; (n.) a finicky word for finicky people. No one really ever meant it. Not really. It was a word of fiction. Something only found in the movies, in books, in shows, made for people, by the people, for the people. Just another lie. 

For fuck’s sake, Robin wasn’t even supposed to be in the picture. This rando just stumbled into a murder scene and thought, “hey, I’d really like to be a part of this!” and Kali just let her waltz right in. There had been moments of Kali glancing toward her, wondering if the glaze of drinking or drugs had just slipped by her. No, they hadn’t. She really was just that insane. Even Nine wondered if she had been placed as a spy or a mole or something. But no matter the accusation, Kali shot it down. And for what? So she could just get in her pants?

 _No. No. No, not for that—not for that_ , she thought over and over on the empty A.M. road. Kali flipped the radio on. _Tainted Love‘s_ chorus blaring out of the speakers did nothing for her. She had to get out of her own head. Usually Nine was there, either the gentle buzzing bee of his silent telepathy filling the car or his hands rapping on the dashboard along to the beat of whatever poppy song played on the radio. 

So now, she had to flip to 98.9FM, a radio station that, if it did exist somewhere out there, didn’t have any reception in Hawkins to send out any music. Kali played the station all the way back to the motel. 

It wasn’t like Robin was the only charming thing about Hawkins. There were some quaint diners and cafés perfectly placed on the corners of some blocks, just like perfectly assembled as if residing in a dreamy little portrait of a small town. The people were unassuming, and the skies were forever shades of blue, gold, or purple. All these things and other things made up the integrity of the town, and Robin just happened to be one of the bigger things.

An empty parking lot. Always perfect for a messy driver. Pulling in, she had come in hot, doing a half-donut as she came to a stop in the space. Number 10, rusty on the door, hung above her. Just another reminder of how small she was. She turned the knob, familiarity with Nine erasing her manners to knock. She just hoped the unlocked door meant he was home.

Home. That was rich. She never really had one of those. Always drifting. Never in the same place more than a year. At least since...   
_(not since dottie and you know it.)_

Kali stepped into darkness, eyes searching for a figure there. The bed where Nine slept laid as unmade as hers had been. The bathroom door was open, and nothing hid inside it. Nothing much to it. Nine simply wasn’t there. 

Panic rose in her chest. She stood in the middle of the room, eyes dashing about to try and see what she hadn’t seen yet, but nothing would come of it. Nine wasn’t a child who’d hide under the bed or the table. Even still, she exhausted her options to the brink of extinction. Facing the empty room, she swallowed. _(fucking hell, fucking hell,_

_Fuck!)_

A hand graced her shoulder, and hell, lo and behold, there was the devil himself. Nine whisked himself around to face her, enveloping her in a tight hug. She gave herself a mental note to remind Nine to clip his nails sometime. They poked at the back of her neck as he held her head to his chest. They separated slightly, though they held each other at arm’s length.

“Where were you?” he shouted, eyes full of oceanic worry.

Kali cursed under her breath. Could she really tell him she blew his recovery off to go f— 

_(short answer: no.)_

“Don’t worry about me. Are you okay?” Kali asked.   
_(follow-up question: where were you?)_

Nine closed his eyes and rolled his neck. “I’m fine, really. Cain did a number on my neck last night. I just woke up, actually. Wandered around the motel looking for you just a minute ago. Your mind patterns were really loud though. Louder than usual. I could hear you from the back of the motel. So, I thought I might surprise you.” 

“Thanks,” Kali said, breaking away from him. 

“Hey, who’s shirt are you wearing?” Nine pointed down at her chest with a bemused smile.

Kali tugged at the bottom of her shirt, which had no resemblance to the simple black tank she wore just last night. Though it was also black, it seemed to be an advertisement for the Hawkins High School Theater Department. A silent curse left her lips. 

She slid on her knees to the left side of her bed, pulling out the suitcase from beneath it. She opened it to change her clothes discreetly. With a threatening look sent his way, Nine caught the hint and turned around. He crossed his arms, holding his head close to his left shoulder.

“You know, there was this weird guy at the check-in. I got mad goosebumps. Like, some real chicken pimples, you know? He was in some Invisible Man getup. You know the whole bandages around the face? Bowler hat, glasses, scarf...” Nine mumbled. He turned his head briefly before catching a glimpse of a bra and turned away again. “You know what I’m talking about?” he yelled awkwardly.

“Yes, I know!” Kali shouted back, a little muffled from pulling a butterfly jumper over her head. She threw her varsity jacket back on and stood up, adjusting it. “I’m familiar. I read it my senior year.”

“Yeah, I just thought that was weird.” He faced her with his arm still over his line of sight. “Can I uncover my eyes now?” 

There was no time for these _fucking_ shenanigans. Kali grabbed her suitcase and threw it on the bed. “I think we need to hurry and skip town.”   
_(and get out of here before robin sees. she’ll follow. she can’t do that she can’t)_

“What about Jane?” Nine asked, arm still over his eyes.

 _(fucking hell.)_ “Forget it. Robin said she dipped. I’m inclined to believe her. I’ll have to find another trail. It’s cold here.” And frankly, she was over the apology at this point.

“And Cain?” 

“Hawkins can deal with it. He’s their monster,” Kali said, but cringed at her bluntness. 

Nine shrugged but didn’t look happy about it. He peeked over his arm and shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. “Fair enough. But if I can just make a small addendum—let’s at least get breakfast before we leave.” 

Kali sighed, picking up the suitcase. “I really don’t feel like illusions today.”

Nine’s brows drew upward. Kali rolled her eyes.

💾

Hawkins Express-O Café didn’t exactly equal a breakfast place as a diner would’ve, but the only one they’d driven by sold burgers. And despite Nine screaming in the backseat, Kali was simply not in the mood to see if their idea of breakfast happened to be a waffle between two slabs of beef. She preferred the vegetarian approach of a café. What was a waffle if not bread, and cafés always had a bread product. Nine would just have to get over it.

A bell jingled as Kali strode through the entrance. Nine shoved himself through the space Kali left when she left the doorway. The force broke the string the bell had been on. He took time to try to fix it back. Thankfully, no one but Kali and the cashier were there to notice the mishap. Sunday meant the crowd generally wouldn’t be there until the hour when church would end. 

Kali ordered a single black coffee for herself. Nine yelled across the way his order for a couple apple danishes, an eclair, and a French vanilla coffee. She shot him a look that went unreturned as he focused on tying the ends of the bell’s string together. 

Scamming was Kali’s game, and she played it well; but, on the occasion that the cashier was cute—and she was, with a short sort of crinkle-cut _(like robin’s)_ and adorable blue eyes _(like robin’s)_ and a big smile _(like robin’s)_ —Kali used the bit of change she’d gathered from breaking a faux fifty. The click of the register made her feel pretty good for once. 

They had some conversation about being new in Hawkins, but Kali tuned all of it out to focus on _(how much she looked like robin)_ the guy working in the background to heat up the pastries on display and warm up the brews. The girl _(nina?)_ droned on about how she wasn’t sure she’d fit in with her band, especially because she played _(the drums?)_ some masculine instrument. _(whatever. so vapid, honestly.)_

Nine drew near, probably just to make Kali look shorter. He nodded toward a two-person table, explaining he would be taking a seat. His telepathy must have been loud, because the cashier offered to deliver their order to their table due to the lack of business. So they sat, and they waited. 

Adjusting his scarf over his mouth, Nine’s brainwaves amounted to nothing more than the gentle thrum of a nightfall’s hive. Kali stared at the grey clouds out of the window behind Nine, trying to imagine the rustle of leaves that her signature alluded to. She felt the heat of embarrassment reach her cheeks when her attempt proved futile. It must’ve been nice. Kali thought _(maybe)_ Robin might’ve sounded like _(nothing. it’s not possible)_ a river _(but it was just her imagination)_. At first, it had been annoying, but it was the only thing that managed to put her to sleep the night before. _(just knowing it was there.)_

Kali closed her eyes, ruminating in the waves of that river—waves that could be calm and gentle, or ones that crashed about, chaos ensuing no matter which path of the rapids one took. A question of “coffee?” startled her out of her headspace as a couple styrofoam cups were placed on the table. The cashier hurriedly dispersed the pastries and hopped away. 

Nine smiled at her in thanks, then turned his attention to Kali. She shrunk in her seat, trying to hide behind her coffee. Nine tapped the back of her hand. “Hey, so, I’ve got a spot of good news. And bad news. Bad news: I lied about wanting breakfast. I just wanted you to stay for a minute because of the good news I’ve got.”

“It better be good, then,” Kali mumbled.

“You should take one,” Nine said of the danishes, grabbing one for himself. He ate as neatly as possible under the scarf, holding the only recently tattered fabric in one hand, and the pastry in the other. Usually, Kali tried not to watch.

“I’m really not hungry,” she said thinly and sipped at her coffee. 

“Well, the good news is: I overheard the guy who works the day shift at our motel talking to another client. There’s a job out in Stanley County just outside Hawkins here. It’s a janitorial job at a local church with free lodging. Only stipulation is that well, it’s a _church_. So... that’s gonna be hard on us for... _reasons_ , but I think we can manage. We’ll just tell them we’re married. Y’know, to each other. It’ll be cool. It’ll be fine. What do you think?”

Kali didn’t need a second to mull it over. His “reasons” took a backseat to the extremely obvious. The moment Nine took his scarf off, he’d be branded a demon and chased out of the church. 

“I think it’s fucking stupid.”

“You know...” Nine rolled his eyes. He sat back in the chair. “I’m not blind, Kal’. I know you like her.” Kali opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again, wanting to see where this was going. “And that’s fine. Because, guess what?”

“What?” Kali played along.

“I really like that guy who works the dayshift at our motel,” Nine whispered. His eyes drifted to the right as the door’s bell pealed out. “But he’s not too shabby either.” He pointed himself in that direction. “Not too shabby,” he repeated, a little more entranced.

Kali turned briefly, then widened her eyes. “No. Say psyche right now.” 

“I’m gonna have to refuse,” Nine replied as he took a swig of his latte, like it was the tall drink of water he made the guy moseying toward the kiosk out to be.

“Well, firstly, he came in with a girl. So, jot that one down. And, he’s like, one haircut away from a mullet,” Kali observed. “And who wears jackets over jumpers? Also, his eyes look dead inside.”

“Bitch, I’m dead inside too,” Nine shot back. He craned his neck a couple ways to try and get a better look at the man, who, quite frankly, didn’t even have a good ass. “We’d be perfect.”

Trying to get the image of Nine courting the man out of her head, Kali shook her head. “But where you could get into a Playgirl magazine, he looks exactly like the kind of weirdo you’d meet at one of Hugh’s soirées, introducing himself as the creep they hired to take the Playboy modeling shots,” she explained.

Nine took a pensive look at his half-eaten eclair. “How is this worse than the motel worker?”

“Because the motel worker at least had a good scruff to his chin and green eyes that said, ‘Hi, I’m probably not a good fuck, but at least I’m easy on the eyes, and you never have to wonder if I’m going to cut you into little pieces in an alleyway.’” 

“Sorry, Kali, but you really only know what the ladies want. Never the guys,” Nine said, waving away her suspicions.

“I don’t know what ladies want,” Kali argued.

“I do.” Nine pointed at her as the answer.

“Fuck you,” Kali said with every inch of endearment she could muster. 

“If I bet you ten bucks you can’t seduce that chick he’s with, I know you’d take that bet.” 

“You don’t even have ten bucks to make that bet.”

“Yeah, I do, and they’re all ones,” Nine smirked behind his scarf. 

“Fuck off, actually,” Kali laughed. “And forget it—she looks like the kind of white-bread girl who listens to Let’s Get It On over and over because she thinks it’ll make her look edgy when people ask her what her favorite song is and she goes—“ Kali twirled her hair and put on her simplest face. “‘Oh, you know, just the 1973 hit, Let’s Get It On by ex-Motown African American superstar, Marvin Gaye.’”

“And that’s the full title?”

“That’s the full title,” Kali confirmed.

“Give me a couple bars. See if you can seduce her over here.” After making a warped “whomp whomp whamp” noise, Nine rapped on the table to the beat. Kali punched his shoulder. “What?” he chortled.

“Shut up, she’s coming this way for real,” Kali hurriedly whispered. 

The girl _(who had a mousy look and a dainty affectation to her gait)_ sat with who Kali presumed to be her _(probably a murderer of at least two to three girls)_ boyfriend at a booth seat just behind Nine.

Nine looked over his shoulder briefly. “You’d have a better shot with her than Robin.” 

_(shut the fuck up.)_

“If she ever found out we nearly killed her dad—“

“She’s not gonna find out,” Kali interjected, a little too loudly. She didn’t have to look at the mousy girl across from her. Kali knew her eyes were on them now. 

“—although, he might actually be dead. What if he just decided to fall over the cliff?” Nine added unhelpfully with a short chuckle.

Kali swallowed the last bit of her coffee and stood from her seat. She stared at the couple whose eyes were on her. They wouldn’t be seeing her though. They wouldn’t even know if she had ever been there to begin with. To them, she was invisible. All they saw was Nine and the wall in front of him. 

She darted out of the shop. Hearing the bell, she realized Nine was behind her, but she wouldn’t stop until she got back to the car. Not for him. Not for anybody. 

_(especially not for Jane.)_

_(wait.)_

Reaching the hood of her van, Kali turned her head. And there she was, talking with a boy her age in the backseat of a top-down convertible, driven by a guy about Kali’s age. There she was, a smile on her face, clothes on that were her size, hair probably done the way she wanted, and with the vocabulary she’d always deserved. With the people she’d always deserved. 

Kali looked at her wrist, frown contorting her face. _(how could she bring her back into this world?)_ She looked back at Nine, who looked down at his own wrist. “008” and “009-A”: the unlikely duo.

Yet, Kali couldn’t help but clench her fist. Thinking the worst for so long... only for it all to have been a lie. She was relieved, yes, but felt betrayed nonetheless. The world seemed to have really given her a tit for tat. A father for a sister. Even still, it seemed hardly fair to Kali. The bruises on their wrists may have faded, but the memories of Dr. Buckley never would. At least for Kali. She wouldn’t burden Jane with what she appeared to have lost. In fact, Kali was content on keeping everything to herself for as long as possible. And Kali was in a very forgiving mood today. _(it was a weakness)_ but there was something _(so stupidly heroic)_ about Robin that gave Kali the impression that this was all done in good faith. And she came to know very keenly that she’d been softened by that girl. 

Now more than ever she needed to find Robin. If not to confront her about Jane, she could at least clear her name in the wake of her father’s disappearance. She could explain his shortcomings—his enabling. _(all the times he slung you back into the hands of the lab workers after you ran to his office for help. the times he pushed nine from the rafters with a broom handle and didn’t stop to ask if he had broken anything in the fall. the times he just watched them carry him away. the time he slapped y)_

Her trip down memory lane ended as she was caught staring. The boy driving the car slipped his sunglasses over his nose, gaze piercing the two. It wasn’t exactly too late to put up an illusion.

“You should use fire now,” Nine suggested.

“You always suggest fire,” Kali complained.

But if Jane was there, that meant this was either Steve or Jonathan. Surely they would know where...

The couple walked out of the shop with a bag of pastries. The driver nodded toward Kali, who tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. Nine had lit a cigarette in the silence Kali had fostered.

While the couple stayed near the car, the driver hopped out, dragging with him a bat full of nails against all protest from the couple. He advanced toward Kali with an arrogant stride. Nine moved backward with a flattering gaze to give the man room to talk.

“I’m gonna give you two seconds to tell me where Robin is—because she’s not at her house, her workplace, or the quarry—and then, I’m gonna let my bat here do the rest of the talking,” the man said boldly. But, his voice was so casual, it was hard to take him seriously.

“One... two...” Nine thought loudly, taking a drag. He threw the cigarette away and removed his scarf, revealing his disfigurement. “You better get back, Jack.”

The man readied his bat to take a swing at Kali’s headlights. Nine pushed Kali out of the way to grapple with the man, pinning him against the wall of the coffee shop. He looked him up and down before tossing him to the ground. He was definitely all bark and no bite.

Kali swiped up the bat. She could have some fun with this one. Out of her van, she produced the images of a gang she hadn't seen in a year. They gathered around Kali and Nine menacingly.

“Now, _you’re_ going to tell _us_ where Robin is,” Kali commanded, pointing the bat at the man.

The man smirked. “Oh, how the tables turn.”

“Yeah, and they’re really spinning,” Kali added.

Nine nodded. “Right round,” he finished. “Like a record, in fact.” 

“Well, if I asked you where Robin was, what makes you think I know?” the man asked. 

Kali looked between Nine and the clones. He had her there. With a snap of her fingers, the clones fragmented into rainbow ashes. She moved to help the man up. He brushed his jeans off and accepted the fallen sunglasses Nine reached to him.

“You must be Steve,” Kali concluded by his clear lack of judgement and hardheaded approach. “Robin won’t shut up about you. I’ve heard the story where you tried to ask her out at least twice by now.” _(once on the way to hawkins lab, and once on the way to hawkins lab for the second time.)_

Steve sighed defeatedly. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“But she really likes that story. Felt like the first time she’d been seen, she said,” Kali remembered. 

“Yeah, well, people are dumb because Robin is amazing,” he said with a brief shrug of his shoulders. “She’s one of the lights of my life. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her.”

Kali nodded, biting her lip. “I think I might know where she is. And if she is there, she’s in a lot of danger.” 

“So then what are we waiting for?” Steve threw his hands up as Kali moved past him.

“I would like a reunion first,” she answered.

After hieing past Steve, the sight of Jane made her feet slow of their own accord. Concrete hung from her heels, dragging behind her with no concern for the time wasted; but, she muscled through it. Brows upturned and tear ducts threatening to flow, she approached Jane with heaviness in her heart. Jane seemed to recognize this and got out of the car, running to meet her halfway in a hug that Kali never wanted to end. She buried her face in Jane’s jean jacket, hoping she wouldn’t wet it with senseless crying. 

“I missed you,” Kali croaked. She held on tight, locks of brown between her fingers. “All this time... all this time, I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry.” 

“I missed you too. It’s okay,” Jane assured her.

They let go, but Kali let her hands hang limply on Jane’s shoulders. She was so tall now. Almost her height. That wasn’t to say much, but it was so bewildering to think that just a year ago she was some fluffy-headed girl who didn’t know a thing about the world, stumbling into Kali’s hideout, adoring her rainbow butterflies, finding her power, and using it... for the wrong reasons. 

Kali swallowed. “Um... I know that I’ve not been a great—well, hardly even good—sister, but... I just hope you can forgive me for—“

Jane rested her hands on Kali’s. “I already said I did.” 

Kali gave her a wavering smile. “We have so much to catch up on,” she cried. A chuckle escaped her as she tried not to let any tears break loose from her eyes.

“Yeah, we do have a lot to catch up on,” said the boy who had been beside Jane in the car. He stood by her now, hands on his hips and a stern expression on his face. And, had Kali not been so focused on Jane, she might’ve given him notice. He looked like just any other boy to her, though. 

“I’m sorry who are you?” Kali asked, only slightly disappointed that he ruined the mood. 

“Her boyfriend,” he stated as-a-matter-of-factly. 

“Mike,” Jane clarified. 

Trying not to show her frustration, Kali let her arms hang at her side. “Yes, well, I’m Kali. I’m her sister. Maybe not in the natural way. More in the way of—“ She flashed her wrist toward him. “—my being ‘Number 008.’” 

She’d focus on the fact that she just exposed her identity to a stranger, granted one that Jane trusted but— ugh, she couldn’t believe Jane had already gotten into the dating game. She’d really missed out on a lot of these experiences. She didn’t give El the ‘boys talk’, she didn’t get to interrogate Mike, and she never got to ask El about her first kiss(if she’d already had it). And it was all her fault, driving her away as she had. This was miserable. She couldn’t afford to miss anything else. Perhaps Nine was onto something with that church job.

“Who’s that?” Jane asked, pointing at Nine with her right hand. Her left was now taken by Mike, who, as of yet, still didn’t have Kali’s approval. 

“Nine. He’s one of us,” Kali answered.

“So, he’s our brother?” Jane pursued.

“Relatively speaking...” It was a little hard to see him that way, knowing she hadn’t spent nearly as much time with him as she had Jane, but she supposed that didn’t make it any less true. She glanced over her shoulder at him, trying to make conversation with Steve. Damn, he really was trying to flirt at a time like this with a guy like that. Sometimes she wished she didn’t have to claim him, but, “Yes, he is.” 

Kali dug her toe in the ground. There had to be something more she could say to Jane before they parted on the way to the lab. “So... is he, uh... bitchin’?”

Jane smiled at Mike. “He’s about five percent bitchin’. He could do better.”

Staring at the ground, Mike furrowed his brow in confusion. Where he was left out, the sisters understood each other well enough. 

“Oh, well. He’s yours, Jane, regardless of his lack of bitchin’-ness,” Kali sighed with a smile. She gave Mike’s shoulder a soft slap of acceptance.

“El.” 

Kali turned her head as if to say “huh?”

“I go by El now,” she clarified. 

“Oh, okay.” Kali nodded, biting her lip. She really missed too much. “Hey, El’. You wanna ride with us and catch up?” 

El beamed. “That would be pretty bitchin’.” 

💾

Rain began to fall from the grey overhead. Hawkins National Laboratory crouched over everyone like a stony gargoyle, watching over the invisible graves of lives lost to its labs. In disrepair since being shut down, it had never looked so decrepit than when Kali drew near its cold regard in the hopes that she still had light in her life.

After Kali and Nine exited the van, El and Mike were told to stay inside the armored vehicle. Nancy and Jonathan hung back with them to make sure they’d be safe. Kali knew well enough not to trust anything the building could throw at them, especially what with Cain let loose by Nine. Despite the kids’ protests, Kali would never have forgiven herself if something had happened to El. The others felt the same.

Upon reaching the lobby, Nine lit a cigarette. His always seemed to last forever. He burned them to the ends of his fingertips until he was practically brushing the ashes from his palms. Kali hated the smoke. After a while, and after observing the orange that would flicker in his unmoving eyes, she came to the realization that he did too. 

But if she had ever made that venture into losing herself in recreational activities, whether it be drugs or just taking up painting, she felt she would’ve lost her focus. Hobbies made a person soft. Kali didn’t know anything about Robin. Not really, anyway. But she knew she liked acting and she was in a band. Robin had a connection to the mainstream that Kali never would. _(never could.)_

With every step she took toward the tenth floor, Kali felt a brick added to the pile she already carried on her back. How long would it take to realize everything would’ve been so much easier if she’d just left Robin alone that day? But she knew that she was already being strung along down Impossible Ave just a block away from Never Street. Impossibility couldn’t be squared. Kali couldn’t have ignored Robin’s persistence, and she couldn’t have let a witness go. 

She at least tried not to lie. No matter what happened, she wouldn’t lie. Dodge questions? All day. But she never lied. And not to mention, she was pretty damn good at dodging questions. 

Nine, on the other hand—

Before they could make it to the tenth floor, trailing behind Steve, Nine took Kali by the arm. 

“Hey. I know you think Robin fell from the highest perch in Heaven, but we don’t have to do this hero thing,” he said, mental voice hushed and almost soft. “We can go. You got Robin her Steve. We don’t have to stay here. We can just...” Nine exhaled. “We can skip town. Like always. Continue with your goals. Get back to avenging ourselves. You can’t just let her get to you.”

“Normally, you know, I’d agree.” Kali looked up, disquieted by the disappearing footsteps above. “But I think—“

“I think you’re getting soft.”

“Shut up,” Kali snapped, causing Nine to throw his head back in surprise. _(he knew you already knew that. didn’t need it hammered home.)_ “Shut up. You may know more than most about me, but that’s still not a lot, and you don’t get to decide what my goals are.”

Nine shrugged with a stupid smile. “What? So you’re going to just... put your roots here? Fucking podunk little Hawkins, Indiana where—oh, I don’t know—we were fucking tortured as kids? Cut the shit, Kal’. Like, really, honestly, and truly cut the shit. You’re always on my case about my hopeless romantic bullshit. Why do you get to—“

“I don’t!” Kali screamed. 

Nine blinked. 

At this point, she had to look pretty disheveled. She didn’t expect to let out a couple tears. “I don’t. And I’m sorry for that! I’m just— I’m done pushing people away for this!”

Exhaling roughly through his nose, Nine looked elsewhere. “So this is just—what? Some kind of atonement?”

“Yeah.” Kali slowed her breathing. “I guess it is.”

“Okay.” 

Kali tapped her foot.   
_(that couldn’t have been all.)_

Leaning against the stairway rail, Nine raised his brows as if expecting Kali to have expected something. Kali stared, waiting for the next explosion. 

“What? That was all you had to say. Stop pretending you’re such a stone cold bitch all the time. I know you’re not.” Nine lightly punched her shoulder.

“Thanks, Nine,” Kali grimaced, brushing her shoulder off. 

“Anytime, yeah,” he replied dumbly.

“Whenever you get done talking to yourself down there, I could use a guide?” Steve shouted from above.

Nine dashed ahead of Kali to join Steve at his side. Even from a distance, Kali could still hear him say, “Of course. Allow me, pretty boy” with that snide charm he always put on.

There was nothing in the world that could’ve prepared her to see the Rainbow Room juxtaposed with Dr. Buckley’s office just beside it. The first time coming back, she had hidden the office from Robin’s sight for obvious reasons, but she felt strongly this was the only place Robin could be if she were to be here. Kali wondered if she was just hiding it because she didn’t want Robin to see it, or if it had been for her own benefit.

Nine ushered Steve into the room and came back to Kali, who stood in front of the Rainbow Room, eyes transfixed on the little peeling sticker atop the frame. Nine smoothed the sticker out but to no avail. The corner just popped up again. He leaned against the frame, his eyes drawn to it as well. 

He looked up at the newly tiled roof. “I remember falling here from the rafters one day. I got tired of crawling around in the vents, so I tried my luck with the pipes.” He smiled down at Kali. “You and Eleven were being pulled out for testing. Actually, we were all supposed to be tested together. And you—“

“I screamed and El threw you against a wall. I remember,” Kali chuckled.   
_(and then for the high crime of an overreaction to the man with a peeling face, Dr. Buckley sl)_

There was no point in reliving that part.

Nine nodded, agreeing with her version of the events. “Then Buckley dragged me back to my room with Cain. Made us sit there in solitary. Well, I guess it’s not really solitary if you’ve got one other person with you?” 

“No, I’d categorize that as solitary. It’s Cain we’re talking about here,” Kali reasoned.

Nine scratched his temple. “Yeah, you’re right. But we had some good moments. Sometimes we’d make up stories about the other test subjects. Talk about what they were like. Even roleplay.”

“What did you think of me?” Kali leaned in. She never gave it much thought before, but Nine always was that kid who got into entirely too much trouble around the lab. Cain was very to himself.

“You were quiet and shy, but super protective of El, who was super annoying and loud.” Nine threw up jazz hands as if to imitate her.

“Wow. You got that ass backwards.”

“I know, but you gave off those vibes at the time. Oh!” Nine excited himself, becoming giddy with whatever he was about to drone on about. “And we had never seen Ten, so we thought Ten was like, this super cool guy who could do whatever he wanted and had like a bunch of friends on the outside. Oh, one time we saw a guy drinking a coke and really enjoying it—which we never got to do—so we built Ten’s whole personality around doing whatever he could to get a coke. We thought he was cool because he’d never been in the lab. We thought one day he’d come rescue us. He was like our Superman. Except, his kryptonite was coke.” 

“That one did come true though, didn’t it?” Kali asked. 

“Ten’s kryptonite being coke?”

“No, rescuing you.”

Nine grimaced, hunching his shoulders. “In a way. He managed to get me out, but not Cain. They put Cain in cryo after the lab got shut down, but they took me down to Canaveral. I should’ve refused. I should’ve fought.” Nine squinted, blinking out what Kali could only presume to be tears. “It was pretty selfish of me to leave without him.”

“What? Why? We had to look out for ourselves. I couldn’t get El out because she’d been put in solitary confinement for emotional outbursts. I had an opportunity to go. I had to get out at all costs. El turned out just fine without me,” she said, _(but you definitely beat yourself up over it for years.)_ “Why are you putting this on yourself?”

“Because, well, I promised Cain that if we ever made it out, we’d make it out together.” He held up his pinky. “I pinky promised him. We pinky promised a lot. Mostly over stupid things like, ‘pinky promise you’ll be back’ or ‘pinky promise you’ll let me be Ten this time, and you can be Dr. Brenner’ or ‘pinky promise you won’t burn me again.’” 

“Nine,” Kali chided.

“I’m just trying to lighten the situation up a bit. Geez.” He rolled his eyes. He rubbed his neck uneasily.

Noticing this, Kali softened her tone. “Um. I really think it’s cute though. Ten being your hero, I mean. When I saw him, I just thought he was some fucking beach bum.”

“Okay, but Kali, he had sunglasses and a rocking mustache.” Nine pointed at nothing in particular. “That’s pretty fucking cool. Cooler than the mullet we thought he had. Mullets were cool at the time, you know...”

That may have been true, but of more note in Kali’s opinion was his shaggy hair and a lumbering posture. He was all muscle and well-tanned skin, but he walked like bigfoot, slouched and swaying. It seemed that at some point, he had fit into society, but something changed that, and now he was hiding from pursuing eyes. Really though, he looked like any other guy in a gas station. He wouldn’t have stood out if he didn’t convince the cashier to give him fifty dollars with just a seductive whisper. Even now, the sultry waver of his voice sent a chill down Kali’s spine. 

“I met him that once when he introduced us.” _(and then promptly fucked off to god knows where. California? maybe. Hard to remember what all was on that post-it with that cramped-ass writing.)_ “The only reason I recognized him because of his powers. You heard the rumors too, right?”

“The lab wanted him because they thought he inherited powers from his mom, yeah. Six seemed kinda cool, but she was outta here before I was even born. Didn’t stop Cain from making me pretend my gown was a dress so we could play out her escape. But hey, I’m not complaining. I got to pretend I had mind control powers.” Nine put his index and middle finger together, sweeping them over Kali’s line of view. “These are not the mutants you are looking for.”

“Shut up, you nerd,” Kali laughed. 

Nine’s face scrunched up into a smile like the only words he wanted to hear were these in jest.

“Hey, Robin likes Star Wars. Are you saying she’s a nerd?” Nine posed jokingly.

“Duh. That’s why I like her—“

Nine’s face lit up as if he’d just hit the jackpot. He pointed at Kali excitedly. “Oh my god! You said it! You finally said it! _Kali and Robin! Sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N—_ “

With a slam of the door, Steve exited Dr. Buckley’s office, eyes sharpened like daggers. His grip on the nail bat tightened. Catching sight of this out of the corner of his eye, Nine froze on the spot. Without hesitation, Kali stood in front of him to brave the imposing threat. 

Kali threw a protective arm forward. “Now, there’s been a lot said that could bite some people in the ass—“

“And there’s definitely been a lot of ass-biting,” Nine agreed.

“—but hear me out, Steve.” Kali drew near him, calm, cool, and collected. “Hear me out.”

“ _Yeah.._.”

Steve stepped back against the door. Kali and Nine whipped around and nearly blinded themselves from the intense light. Squinting, Kali managed to make out the figure of the flaming man standing before them. 

Cain sneered at Kali as he finished his sentence, “...hear her out, Steve.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who is ten?
> 
> idk i havent even finished writing chapter eight yet lol


	7. us and them.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin plays a video game. Steve sings a song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up. this is THE LONGEST CHAPTER. like, be prepared. it's. a lot. (also the beginning is like, slightl y confusing i know)
> 
> i tried my best to make the chapters like, as close to the songs in length which is why this one and "time." are very VERY long compared to the others. those songs are also my favorites(us and them is my favorite Pink Floyd song of all time) so like, i had to give them extra detail. i think this one is the only one that doesn't directly reference the song lyrics though? i might be wrong. about my own writing. listen,

At this point, it was safe to assume no one was coming for her. She needed to pack her things and go. Take what she wanted from the office and go. Forget everything. Just go. 

She pushed herself up weakly, using the desk to pull herself to her feet. Though the gravity of the situation threatened to push her back down again, she managed to stand. She wiped her eyes with her forearm and rested on the desk. 

Unsteadily, she stood. No time to be moping around. She had to get home before her mom or Samson started to worry. Steve wasn’t home, so he wouldn’t be there to pick up the phone if they called. He would’ve lied for her, then he would’ve began to worry, and he’d probably panic and start running around the town, gathering a search party composed of Nancy, Jonathan, and some random kids he babysitted like once. She would’ve liked to witness such an event. 

That is, if she lived long enough to. A new rattling of the doorknob alerted her to her short lifespan. She dashed toward her bag, groping around for the gun. Forgetting about the broken picture of her parents, she drew a bloody hand back, hissing in pain. If she hadn’t cried enough, the wound wasn’t helping. Deciding to say fuck it, she yanked the banker’s lamp out of its socket to use as a blunt force weapon to the fiery demon about to spring forth into the office.

The door creaked open, and for a moment, Robin thought she saw him. Cain, and his piercing amber eyes. But in his stead, Steve waltzed in, shutting the door behind him. Upon entry his face was solid and cold, but at the first glimpse of Robin, his expression melted into relief and joy, a mile wide smile spreading across his face.

Steve dropped his nail bat and opened his arms wide. Robin put the lamp back down on the desk and flung herself into Steve’s arms. He leaned back, letting her push into him, locking herself into a two-piece jigsaw puzzle. God, she didn’t realize how much she missed that fluffy brown hair, perfect for locking her fingers in. In a blockbuster movie, this would’ve been the part where they kissed, but they both knew very well that this wasn’t a part of the agenda, it never would be, and it didn’t have to be. 

“Don’t fucking scare me like that again,” Steve ordered, muffled. “We had an agreement. You were supposed to be at the Wheeler’s.”

“Did you turn into my mom all of a sudden?” Robin laughed through the tears. She gathered her breath, wheezing slightly as the words _but I love you and I’m so glad you’re here now_ died in her throat. 

They parted as Robin dashed behind the desk, grabbing the floppy disk from the computer.

“Your hand’s bloody,” Steve noticed. He tugged at his jacket, checking to see if she had left a print. Unfortunately there were a couple red marks. He stuck his tongue out to mime retching. 

“I know that, dingus.” She looked down at her hand as if she didn’t know it was bleeding. But it wasn’t very serious, and he was focusing on the wrong thing anyway. She held up the floppy disk. “But look at this.”

“It’s a floppy disk.” Another grade-A observation from Steve Harrington.

Robin shook the floppy disk in an aggravated fashion. He just wasn’t getting it. “Yeah, I know it’s a floppy disk. But you know what’s on it?”

Steve leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. “Porn.”

“It’s my dad’s personal log! He worked here! He was a scientist!” Robin walked out from behind the desk, throwing the disk into her bag. “Can you believe it? He faked his own death so no one would find out. And then—“ Robin swallowed and sat against the desk. Well, this was going to be hard. She didn’t want to cry in front of Steve, but her eyes said otherwise. She parted her lips as if to say something, but nothing came out. 

Crouching beside her, Steve rested a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, I don’t know what you found out, but you know your parents don’t define you, right?” 

Like his _astronaut_ parents? Robin exhaled sharply. At least he was trying. She couldn’t help but appreciate him. “Yeah, I know,” she said warmly.

“And also,” he trailed off, rummaging inside his jacket for something. Robin felt remiss not to have noticed the bulge(although, with everything else going on, that was the least of her worries). She was happy at least to know that she had predicted the gift itself, because there, perfectly wedged on his hand, was a Kermit puppet.

“Steve, you didn’t,” she said partly in shock and appreciation, and partly in _I-Can’t-Believe-You-Really-Got-Me-A-Puppet-When-I’m-Clearly-Above-The-Age-Of-Six._

“Happy birthday! Yeah, I found it at a mall outside Hawkins.” He beamed as if he had pulled off the surprise of a century, despite Robin’s somewhat blank expression. “You’re finally an adult! Yay!” he said in his Kermit voice, which hadn’t gotten any closer to the actual voice he was trying to mimic.

“You are such a dingus.”

“Yeah, but you love me anyway,” Steve said with his usual licensed brand of confidence. He held his non-puppet-fisting hand out to her. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” 

She took it, her stance a little shaky once they got back to their feet. “Wait, Steve.” She drew a long breath. “There’s something you should know.” 

“What? You can explain in the car,” he said, stuffing Kermit back in his jacket.

“No,” she swallowed. “I can’t.” She couldn’t explain in the car. She didn’t know what would stop her, but something would. She just could feel it. Now was the only time to explain it.

And explain she did, watching closely as Steve’s confusion turned into a stone cold understanding of the situation. She tried her best to be chronological about it, from her father’s first day to his last. Steve took up his nail bat and turned toward the door once Robin arrived at present day, dirty deeds and all. Robin darted forward, drawing Steve back with a hand on his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” she demanded of him.

“They’ve got some explaining to do,” he decided.

Offended and bewildered by the change of pace, she scoffed. “Steve, this is my battle! I’ll decide who needs to explain and who doesn’t!” 

He flipped around. “Robin, they killed your dad! Don’t you want to know why? Don’t you want to make them answer for it?” 

Robin threw her hands up. “I don’t know, but that’s for me to decide when I get around to it!”

With a final huff, he stormed out of the room. Robin hesitated for a moment, staring at the cold metal door, wondering where everything managed to go wrong. 

Well, a good starting point was the leather jacketed man who shoved his way past a protesting Steve and in through the doorway. Robin could barely make out Kali taking Steve’s hand to run before Nine shut the door. He shot over to the left side of the room’s bookshelf, grasping at almost every volume on the shelves, pulling each one slightly downward, and then when they didn’t do whatever he expected them to do, he went on to the next. 

“You’ve got a lot of nerve!” Robin scoffed. “Honestly! Did you just pity me? Did you want me to feel confused? Bitter? Angry? Well, congratulations! I don’t know how the fuck to feel!”

“You still don’t know everything,” he said, not even bothering to look at her.

“No?” She crossed her arms, looking at him expectantly. “You mean I don’t know how you and Kali took your little ‘revenge tour’ to Hawkins to kill my dad? I don’t ‘know everything’ yet?” 

“No, you don’t.”

“Okay. You know what? I’ll bite. I do have a burning question for you. Why?” her voice broke. “Why him?” she cried. 

Nine crouched, trying the lower books. “You know that one already. I told you why.” 

“But he wasn’t one of the— the lab boys or guys or whatever! So why him? Why me?” she pressed, daring to step closer. 

“You have... some weird way of knowing exactly what you need to do and where you need to be in order for future events to take place. You ought to use that gift more often...” Nine looked down at a book he pulled from the shelf. He tossed it away and went back to tugging on the others. “Haven’t you ever wondered why you know so many languages? Why you do so many extracurriculars?”

That was hardly anything. “I just wanted to.”

“No,” he said, holding up a finger behind him as if to silence her. “Something pushed you. And something pushed you to be at that quarry that day.” 

Finally, he tilted one of the books downward and it creaked back into its original position on the shelf of its own accord. In hindsight, Robin supposed she should’ve realized he was only pulling on red books. 

The bookshelf on the right wall slowly crept outward, revealing itself to be a door to a hidden room. The room itself was almost empty, simply just a continuation of the office. It wouldn’t have been notable in the slightest if not for the black arcade cabinet sitting against the wall, awaiting a player.

“And that machine is exactly why,” Nine continued, pointing at it. He leaned back against the bookshelf, unimpressed by what he’d uncovered.

Robin drew near the room to get a closer look, but remained in the office. The cabinet looked just like the one she got banned from at the arcade, except it didn’t seem to have a coin slot or the same joystick and two button interface, going for a d-pad and single button display. She looked back at Nine. “But— but that’s not—“

“No, it’s the original. I listened to his reports. I used to crawl around in that vent up there,” he said, pointing to the air vent just above the right bookshelf. “I know everything about every one of his projects. They had to tone the cabinet’s effects down for a consumer audience. They got what they wanted though. You have no idea how many hypnotized recruits for testing came out of that arcade.” Nine looked down at Robin. “He used to watch you, y’know. He never stepped in, even though you could’ve easily been one of those recruits.”

“He had no choice. He couldn’t,” Robin reasoned. 

Nine rolled his eyes. “Anyone can do anything they want to do.”

“What good would it have done?”

“You tell me,” Nine said, leaning forward with his brows raised. “But you can’t ever forget the migraines or the fainting spells, can you? Can’t forget the addiction. I can see your fingers twitching even now.”

Robin held her bleeding hand. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“Don’t I?” He strode around the room, taking all the clutter in. “I listened to the logs. He’s got copies of all of them hoarded somewhere in here. I’m assuming you only heard his personal diary, but you should know that’s only one side of the story. That’s the side he left for you.” Nine nodded toward the cabinet. “That’s your birthright, you know. Kali wanted to destroy it, but I was the only one who knew where it was. That’s why I left with you to the generators that day. It’s yours to destroy.” He tilted his head toward his shoulder, musing. “Or...”

“‘Or’ what?” Robin flared.

Nine shuffled toward her, hands in his pockets. “Or you can become the person he was trying to make,” he said, standing over her.

Robin backed away against the desk. “I am _not_ his guinea pig!” she protested.

“And I am?” Nine scoffed and shook his head. He stared at her, patiently waiting for a response where there was none to be given. Then, his eyes fell on her hand. “Come here. You’re bleeding.” 

He walked toward her, but Robin wouldn’t give an inch to meet him. He unraveled his scarf from around his singed neck, taking the cloth and wrapping it around her bloodied hand as a makeshift bandage.

“If you can find some alcohol around here, I would disinfect it as soon as possible,” he advised. 

Robin stared petulantly down at her newly bandaged hand and his still enclosed around it. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“No, but I like you,” Nine said gently. 

“Why?” A tear streaked down her cheek. She felt her nose crinkle and her chin wobble against her wishes. “You hated him. You hated him so much so that—“

“Robin,” he cut her off, patting her hand softly. “We’re in the same boat, you and me. But unlike me, I think you have potential for greater things. All I’m good for is a job as a mad scientist’s horribly deformed apprentice.”

Though she wanted to laugh at his attempt to make light of the situation, Robin remained silent, because it probably wasn’t a joke to begin with, and she couldn’t laugh for the tears anyway. She broke off their touch to wipe her eyes with her forearm. Her miasma of guilt moved her toward her bag, and she handed Samson’s gun to Nine. “Here. Take this for your troubles.”

Nine gazed down upon it, eyes trembling with uncertainty. A short exasperated sigh left his throat. “Robin, you already know what I’m going to say. A— and I think you’ve known since the quarry, so...” he trailed off, pained by the gift.

“But it’ll make me feel better if you say it,” Robin implored.

“You already know,” he repeated solemnly.

“Please.”

Nine sighed, looking down again at the handle that now hung limply from his palm, suspended only by his finger in the trigger. “Robin,” he began tiredly as if disappointed with himself, “I’m a lousy shot.” He gave the gun back to her.

She accepted it with a fair bit of grace. “I know.”

With that, he began to leave, but looked back at her from the doorway, brow furrowed and frowning as much as he possibly could. “Are you really going to do it?” he asked. 

“Keep them safe,” she ordered, heading behind the bookshelf.

Behind her, she heard the door close. She approached the cabinet without fear. Nine wasn’t wrong when he said it was her birthright. It certainly did feel like that. Gazing at the jet black exterior, Robin felt like nothing could steal her away from it. As she ran her hands down the metal, absolutely frigid from disuse, the machine almost seemed to welcome her like an old friend. Well, more of a friend of a friend. The interface had no start button. Instead, the machine had to be started in the back with a switch just slightly bigger than one for a light. When she flipped it on, the machine hummed and whirred into life. Gentle static issued forth from the screen. Robin rounded the machine and was greeted with a simple black start menu. 

Despite the lack of a joystick, everything was familiar. The rainbow ship, the main goal of shooting everything in sight, and the way the screen flashed in hypnotic colors when she died. The only difference here seemed to be the passage of time. Everything sped up the further she got along. Eventually, it seemed that five levels had sped by in mere seconds despite having the same general length as any other level. As she pressed on, she found herself practically leaning over the controls to get a closer look at the screen. Her eyes bounced across every pixel just to be sure she’d hit her mark every time. She couldn’t afford to lose now that she’d gotten to the hundredth level. 

The bullets on the screen began to widen until the white filled up the whole screen and sprouted into lilies along a milky river, with triangular spaceships shooting beams of white and rainbow at various tangerine trees, which would peel into cellophane when shot. And by the time Robin managed to get her footing in this strange world

She found that she was at her senior prom, slow dancing with Steve. She was in a champagne dress with puffy short sleeves and a pink rose pattern straight out of the 60’s. It took her a minute to realize it was her mother’s, and a rush of warmth and new adoration for the dress ran through her. Steve was up on the trends, wearing a new tux with blue accents. He spun her around to the sleepy tune of _99 Luftballoons_ , which, if anyone asked her, was probably in the language of piglatin. Steve would’ve believed her, but she didn’t get the chance to tell him because now 

She was thirty years in the future. She was forty-eight, wearing a pantsuit, and walking into an office labeled “Harrington.” She was carrying a manila folder. Her hair was cut a lot shorter than ever before and graying somewhat from stress. The office she walked into was filled with stacks of paper around a couple desks, and there sat a man in a suit and tie at the desk with the most stacks. He still had that tumbleweed of brown hair, but no one used his nickname anymore—he’d long outgrown it. His face had aged, but most would still call him handsome. She could feel the cracks in her own face, but she took pride in them. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the file onto the barely empty space on the desk. He looked up at her with mild disinterest. She’d have to explain herself this time. 

There was no time to do this though, because now she was three years in the future, twenty-one, sitting in the back of Kali’s van, and having a beer to celebrate her birthday. It was nothing fancy—just some Miller Lights between girlfriends. But Kali made sure Robin got a star and lights show in the night sky. Shooting stars fell one after the other, and Robin felt as if she’d made a million wishes. They drank, and kissed, and drank, and kissed some more. She was so caught up in the buzzing emotion that she didn’t even notice that

Now she was sixteen years in the future, thirty-four, and walking beside Steve as they approached an abandoned house. She pulled out her wallet. Though her FBI badge was certainly of interest, her thumb brushed over a pocket and nudged out a Polaroid of her and Kali, smiling as if their romance had never ended in tragedy. But Robin knew it would because

She was ten years into the future now. She could barely focus, everything was so bright. Eleven was finally an adult who'd stopped running from... something. She was trying to seal that something away. Kali was mostly trying to get everyone to safety, pulling Robin back from the sight and yelling at others to get away while they could. And Robin wasn’t sure exactly how she lost Kali 

But eleven years into the future she had a drink in her hand and she was staring at that Polaroid picture awfully hard. It was one thing to miss someone, thinking they were gone forever. It was another thing entirely to know she had to endure the long wait to get them back

And Robin looked forward to actually living out that feeling of excitement and happiness she would get when she would reunite with Kali, leaping into her arms as a fifty-year old woman, crying harder than ever, and feeling just like she did when she was eighteen, and young, and dumb, and so, so in love. She knew the first thing she wanted to do was 

Go to Paris. And in Paris, they stayed.

But no matter where she went in time and space, whether it was a couple seasons worth of time into San Francisco to find a man she’d thought long dead, or two years to Las Vegas to have a vacation with friends, she always felt a set of hands gripping her shoulders and under her knees. Almost like they were dragging her, despite her living out her future unimpeded.

There were voices too. Though she was conversing with Jonathan alone a year later, there was also a familiar voice in her ear practically exploding with worry, shouting _“we need to get her out of here!”_

Another voice would reply, _“why? is this your sick idea of atonement?”_ even though she was three years in the future, talking with a freckled and bespectacled woman whose voice was entirely too sardonic to match what she heard at the back of her head.

As she spoke with the person who held the same voice as the second, that first familiar voice stated what was obvious to her, _“no, it’s because I fucking care about her.”_ and the second voice would go silent. 

Just months later, she would be standing on a stage, acting. It didn’t make sense. She was only a stage tech. But it was hard to focus on the why this future would happen when the rest of her future was still happening.

She probably laughed aloud at some point in this trance. Fourteen years later, when she and Steve returned to Hawkins, walking down Plutarch Avenue, he recounted her coming out story from his perspective. She laughed so loud, remembering his stupid Kermit voice that he still couldn’t do fourteen years after the fact. But they had a job to do in this sleepy little town, memories or no. They had to keep focus. Who knew what Hawkins could throw at them?

Robin never got to find out. Just as she rounded the corner, everything dissipated into the murky black depths of nowhere. When she looked down, all she could see was her reflection, as if it were shallow water she stood on. She picked at her freckles, but stopped herself to tug at her stringy sandy blonde hair. She cupped her face, hands roaming all over as she wondered if she needed a makeover. This didn’t hold her interest for long, and she held her head up high to walk away from the idea. As she traipsed along in the dark, ripples formed beneath her high-tops, despite the ground feeling relatively solid and smooth like glass. She wanted to question the light source of the area or why she was there in the first place, but everything else was so goddamn weird that there was really no point in bothering.

Searching for an exit to the never-ending dark, she turned on her heel to see Eleven, standing a few feet’s distance from her, hands balled into fists and eyes wrapped in a flannel jacket. Blood trickled down her face. Robin approached her, but the closer she came, the more Robin began to feel as if she were splitting in half, and those halves split in half, and so on and so forth. Each fragment hurt worse than the last, and so Robin backed away, feeling better as she became whole again. Blindly reaching out for her, Eleven drew near, splitting Robin again as if she were unknowingly chopping away at her with an axe. Robin crossed her arms, folding in on herself, but to no avail. There was no stopping this.

Just when she didn’t think the agony could get worse, Eleven finally reached her and put her hands on Robin’s temples. Searing hot pain shot out from every angle of her, and she clenched her eyes shut as if it would help. In each fragment she felt a memory lost. Everything was blank, white noise and fuzzy all the same. If she could only just go back to having migraines after her adventures in the arcade, she would’ve been dealing with much less pain. She would’ve rather hallucinated a million times over. She screamed as loud as she could as if that would deter the naturally stony and aloof girl. Robin was sure she was crying, but this did nothing for her either.

When finally the pain stopped, she kept her eyes closed. She could hear concerned chatter around her, and she could feel the hands shaking her to stir her back into the present day. But she wouldn’t open her eyes. Not because she couldn’t, but the thought of opening them and seeing grey in place of Kali’s purple mortified her.

So, thankfully, Steve did the ballsy thing and pulled one of her eyelids open. Seeing that dingus’ cheeks, reddened from yelling, Robin ended up shedding a couple tears. Or maybe it was just because of the air her eye was exposed to. 

Whatever the case, she latched onto him, hugging him tightly as if she’d never see him again, despite having seen almost everything that would ever happen to him in the span of mere minutes. 

“I can’t believe you carried me out of there,” Robin said into Steve’s shoulder.

“Actually, it was Kali,” he corrected. “I was just running around behind her with your backpack and a nail bat waiting for some shit to jump off.” 

“K— Kali?” Robin swallowed, unable to speak for her surprise. But it wasn’t surprise really, she felt like she already knew that; she just needed to hear it get said— and she wouldn’t say she disliked having the name on her tongue. Every ounce of momentary hatred she’d felt for her was now swirling with the future knowledge of their dedication to each other and the truth that she’d eventually find out. 

Robin sat back on her heels and took a look around the area. They were in the back of Kali’s van. She was sitting in the floor with Steve and Nancy at either of her sides and Eleven directly in front of her with Mike and Jonathan beside Eleven. Kali was nowhere in sight.

“Where is she?” Robin asked with a tinge of desperation coloring her tone.

“She went back in for Nine.” Steve explained. His expression turned into worry. “You looked really bad. You had a pool of blood pouring from your nose.” 

Robin gingerly prodded the area above her lips, but came away with nothing. She realized Steve’s jacket was probably sitting in her lap for a reason. She sighed. “Steve, I... I saw everything. Everything that ever happens to me. It’s starting to fade now, but I can still feel its traces.”

“Well try not to spoil anything,” Steve quipped. 

“I’m serious, dingus. It was pretty fucking traumatic,” she said measuredly. 

Eleven finally removed her flannel coat from around her eyes. Her brows furrowed as she looked down upon Robin. “Are you okay?” she fretted. “I tried my best to put you back together.” 

“I’ve felt better, but I think I can probably walk out of here without any crutches, doc,” Robin replied with as much of a smile as she could muster. “Speaking of walking out of here, let’s go get Kali before she gets herself killed.”

Steve groaned, falling back against Jonathan. “Do we absolutely have to? Does this happen in the future?” Steve griped.

“I didn’t get every single detail, but generally, I will walk out of that building with you, Kali, and Nine. It has to happen,” Robin determined. 

She wasn’t exactly fond of what would happen next, but it had to happen for everything else to go as swimmingly as it did. Hopefully what happened next would fade by the time they exited the lab again. Ignorant of it or not, she wasn’t looking forward to it.

“I just don’t understand. They killed your dad and you’re just okay with it?” Steve questioned. 

“No, I’m not okay with it.” 

“What? But you were—“

Robin stood into a crouch, throwing Steve’s jacket back toward him. Steve leaned forward to catch it, but slung the bloody outfit toward Nancy. Robin opened the van door and hopped out. Steve leapt out of the van after her.

“That was before I saw the future,” she explained, already walking back into the lab. “I don’t have time to sit and give a report in front of the class about my timeline, Steve. I need to go save Kali. Now get your puppet and move!” 

Steve looked back into the van. “What does Kermit have to do with this?”

Robin whipped around. “Go ahead and give me an F, Mr. Harrington, because I’m telling you— I’m not going over this! We don’t have time! Now come on!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. 

  
💾

  
After getting a promise in the form of a kiss from Nancy, Steve was assured that she and Jonathan would stay in the van to watch over the kids. Robin stood by the entrance, waiting for him to catch up to her. Though she knew she had to wait on him for things to go exactly as planned, there was a strange itch up her spine that told her to hurry, hurry, hurry—there was no time. No time for anything. Everything had to happen at light year speed.

Steve finally caught up to her. He stood still so as to shove the Kermit puppet in his pants pocket. “So if you can see everything that’s going to happen, why don’t you try to change anything?” he asked, voice a little strained from trying to force the felt down his denim.

“Because I’m just as beholden to time as you are,” Robin mumbled, entranced by the odd sight.

“Then what’s the point of knowing the future?” He looked away from her and exhaled as he put his hands on his hips. The little green head of the frog poked out just above his belt line. 

Robin just sighed. “Honestly? None. Comfort, maybe. I can’t pretend there’s a definite, absolute benefit to being able to see the strings if I’m just a puppet too.” 

Steve held the front door open for her. It still bewildered Robin that getting in could be that easy. She tried not to trail behind him. They didn’t have that kind of relationship. They walked side by side, like equals. Nine typically trudged a step behind Kali, but rather than an inequality being expressed, it seemed protective and brotherly. Steve could punch a Russian, yes, but a regular at that bar right on the outskirts of Hawkins? Steve didn’t stand any more of a chance than Robin. 

“So, if we’re all puppets, then why haven’t we found the Rainbow Connection yet?” Steve asked.

Robin stopped in her tracks. “The— I’m sorry. The _what?“_

“The Rainbow Connection,” Steve repeated as of it would clear anything up. “You know—“ He twirled his hands as he sang snappily and without rhythm, “ _One day we’ll find it, the Rainbow Connection? The lovers, the dreamers and_ — Robin, come on, you know it. Stop fucking around, dude. Come on.”

“Dude, I do not know that song,” Robin insisted with a chuckle. 

“But it’s from Kermit!” Steve demurred. 

“Okay?” As if that were supposed to mean something to her. She didn’t know everything about Kermit just because they had one in-joke. 

“I’ll just—“ Steve exhaled loudly. “I’ll have to sing it for you sometime.”

Robin nodded. She got a good feeling he would at some point. 

Though Robin had a general outline of where she needed to go, she and Steve practically wandered around aimlessly until a situation would present itself. 

That situation presented itself when a broom closet door opened and snatched Robin into it. Steve, panicking, banged on the door until the invisible hand dragged him in as well. The fluorescents of the hall managed to leak in through three slits in the door. They managed to illuminate Kali’s face somewhat. Robin would’ve thought her to be relieved, but she only remained watchful of what was happening outside.

“You’re really lucky you didn’t get mauled by one of those _things_ ,” she muttered darkly. 

“What ‘things’?” Robin questioned. She attempted to edge closer to the middle, having gotten saddled behind Steve in his panic.

“Well, imagine if Nine’s face was only a mouth, and also he was a wolf with no fur,” Kali explained.

“Demodogs,” Steve suggested.

“Sure! Call them whatever the _fuck_ you like. But they’re out there right now because Cain let them loose,” she said, pointing outward.

“But we killed the Mind Flayer last year,” Steve argued. “Everything should be dead.”

Kali held her arms to her sides. “Look, I don’t know what in the goddamn fuck you’re talking about, but I don’t think a whole other fucking dimension is just going to get completely shut down just because you might’ve killed a couple big guys.” 

“How are we going to get everything sealed back up if we’re keeping Eleven in the van?” Steve asked Kali, but turned to Robin as he said it as if she were the final authority.

“I don’t think that’s in the cards right now,” Robin murmured. She tried to search for the answer, but her ability faded now to the point that some moments became indistinguishable to each other as if someone had poured water on the acrylic painting of time.

“She’s right. It’s not. I’m not letting my little sister get killed here. No one wants to die here, and especially not us,” Kali said determinedly.

Steve scoffed. “But she was just fine last year!”

“I don’t care!” Kali leaned forward to yell. “If I was there last year, you would’ve had to knock me out to let you take her back here.” 

“Well, you weren’t there, so we did it, and everything turned out peachy fucking keen. So maybe we should just not have you here, and just go do it, rip the bandage off, and get it over with,” Steve muttered every word in quick succession, crossing his arms with a hand free to gesture.

Robin sank to the floor as the two started to engage in a pissing contest over who knew best for Eleven. It all seemed to her to be the babysitter versus the deadbeat sister. But, if she was being honest with herself, it was funnier to think they were just arguing because they had a mutual understanding that their hairstyles were very coveted pieces of artwork and goddamnit, one of them had to come out of this as having the better piece. Farrah Fawcett vs. Avant Garde. Who would win? Not even the future knew.

And just when she thought the tripping was over, Robin could’ve sworn she heard the buzzing of bees. Her eyes trailed along the edges of the room and around the sneakers and combat boots to find some strange source of the noise. She’d noticed those shoes had gotten closer as the yelling converged in the center of the room, but there was nothing around to suggest a bee or other insect of buzzing capability. 

“Do you guys hear anything?” Robin asked from below. She looked up at the momentary adversaries who looked back down at her with equal concern.

A hush fell over them as they took in the silence. It wasn’t silent for Robin though. Now, she could hear rustling leaves accompany the buzzing, which was getting louder. Then, there was a faint click. And another. The clicking got closer together and more pronounced. It was a throaty sound and not unlike the calling of a horse or a flick of the tongue against the roof of the mouth. 

Robin stood between Steve and Kali. “Don’t panic.” 

Steve huffed. “Yeah, okay, Robin, let’s not panic. Let’s not fucking panic when there’s some— quite frankly—scary fucking clicking going on outside of the fucking broom closet door! Yeah, Robin, we should definitely, absolutely keep fucking calm. Do you even fucking hear yourself sometimes? Come on, dude, I mean—“ 

Kali jumped forward to shove her hand over his mouth. She eyed the slits in the door. Robin could see the corners of her eyes light up gold. Seeing it now made Robin’s chest swell with hope. Gold was starting to become her favorite color alongside purple.

“Everything’s fine. I sent him a message,” Kali whispered, taking her hand back to prop against the door. “Just be quiet until the coast is clear,” she ordered.

“Who’s ‘he’?” Steve whimpered.

“Spoilers.” Robin smiled. 

The clicking increased, sound amplified by the emptiness of the halls. There seemed to be a response of clicks, and something’s—or somethings’— departure. Then, a silent approach of hard-soled shoes against the tiled floor. Kali had mostly obscured the light, but a new figure stood in front of it, perhaps watching over their shoulder. They then slowly opened the door, making Kali stand back.

When the door came open, there stood Nine, looking over his left shoulder, assuring himself that the coast was clear. He motioned them silently to exit their hiding space as he stepped back. It was really rather underwhelming. Robin felt it would’ve been much more a spectacle to have made some sort of reference to accompanying him if they were intent on keeping their lives.

Kali took the first moment near him to immediately slap him on the shoulder.

“Where have you been?” she chastised him. 

Nine pursed his lips. “I’ve been rounding up... uh... them.” 

He pointed down the hall at five creatures which perfectly matched Kali’s description. These “demodogs” as Steve called them looked to be hunched over, panting hard, and nearly meatless, only skin and bone. Upon hearing the three pairs of footsteps exiting the closet, they’d snapped their heads up, but waited patiently for some word or signal to move. Another demodog rounded the corner. It appeared to have noticed the other presences in the room, but also felt their stasis, and so stayed put. 

Steve patted his hips and realized only now that he’d forgotten his nail bat in the van. This was fine because as he’d made note of, Steve had made another mindless decision and forgot to rid himself of it. That mindless decision was to grab her knapsack while Kali carried her out.

Raising herself on her tiptoes, Robin slowly unlatched the top flap on the bag, holding it up so that she could rummage through it. Glass threatened to scrape her bandaging, but she managed to gradually slip out Samson’s gun. Steve eyed her cautiously. She sent him a look that assured him she was only holding this just in case and _only_ just in case.

Nine leaned his head toward Kali, but kept his eyes on the demodogs. “To be honest, I don’t have a great handle on them...”

“What makes you say that?” Steve piped up behind him.

“Well... there _were_ twelve of them.” Nine rubbed the back of his neck. “And as you can see, now there’s only six,” he said, gesturing toward the beasts, lying in wait. 

“So what are our options?” Kali asked. Her illusions probably didn’t work on anything without eyes.

“Gun,” Steve suggested.

Nine whipped around, mouth agape and expression aghast. “No!” he shouted as if he’d been, for lack of a better word, shot. And this wouldn’t have been a problem if he could’ve kept his shout in the vicinity. However, in his panic, his volume made sure everyone in the hallway could hear him. 

And again, that wouldn’t have been a problem if the demodogs weren’t also capable of a mental link for telepathic capabilities—but, well, maybe they weren’t. 

This turned out to be wishful thinking, which Robin could tell the other three had also been hoping for. Or at least, Nine and Kali were. The two slowly turned around with Nine standing as tall as possible in a last ditch effort to control the demodogs via intimidation. A series of clicks issued forth from his mouth, which the demodogs returned in kind. He made as gentle of an approach as he could, crab walking toward them with his palms out. The demodogs neared the group, lurching as if ready to prance. Nine seemed to be the only thing between them and what might have become three bodies torn asunder. 

With no warning except for the clamorous clacking of nails against tile, four more demodogs came careening down the hall, overwhelming the few that were already standing around and erasing all progress Nine had made. Caught up in the stampede, Nine fell backwards as a demodog jumped him in attempt to get down the hall. He pinned it to the ground by the neck despite its distressed clicking. Robin cocked her gun and attempted to shoot, but they snaked around her aim, and eventually snaked around her as well. They ran past the group entirely, taking no interest in the standing and similarly panicking meat around them. 

A horrible whine came around the corner, along with more distressed clicking. Red light blazed against the wall as Cain sauntered by, holding a demodog in his flaming grasp. Robin immediately covered her mouth and nose, both horrified and repulsed by the vomit-inducing smell of burning flesh. The demodog was released from his grasp with a lifeless thump. Nine rose up into a crouching position. The demodog he’d been holding laid passively beside him. 

Cain stood menacingly over Nine, who failed to look him in the eye. “You ought to have control over your telepathy range by now,” Cain chastised him.

“And you ought to have died from starvation by now. What are you waiting on? Just go get your revenge! We’re not here twenty-four-seven!” Kali pointed out.

“I’m waiting for a certain... _bird..._ to flock back to the nest. Revenge just won’t taste the same until then. I mean, really, isn’t he what all this fighting is about? Don’t you want to watch his creations burn before everything else?” Cain lowered himself into a crouch. Nine still looked away from him. “The time has come for you to choose. We can all burn this place together. Burn it to the _ground_. I know there’s another one of us near. Her radio pattern wasn’t hard to remember.” 

Robin looked to Kali, who held a rather pale countenance now. Her eyes were gold, likely for disguise purposes. She was shaking in anger. Robin’s right hand drifted toward her left, gently brushing her knuckles with her own. Kali pushed against the touch.

Steve leaned down toward Robin. “Is this the part where I use the puppet?” 

“Yes,” Robin said firmly. She had been counting on distraction as a method of escape since Cain’s appearance.

But what she didn’t expect was for Steve to begin openly singing with Kermit on his hand. Now was not the time for _Rainbow Connection_. Especially when he didn’t even know all the words, just mumbling some verses. Sure, it was distracting, and Cain stood up to stare at the strange performance, but this was practically nothing doing.

“Steve, no! I meant for you to use it like this—“ 

Robin snatched Kermit from him and tossed it at Cain, hitting him square in the forehead with the hard, plastic eyeballs of the puppet. She thanked her couple years of little league softball. Losing his flame, Cain fell to the ground from the surprise, leaving him open for Nine to sic the demodog on him. 

Intent on getting the hell out of dodge, Kali seized Robin’s hand and led her out of the maze of halls with Steve and Nine trailing behind them. It felt so natural to be running like this. And Robin could easily outpace her, but this position just felt right. Call it deja vu, but she’d seen this same scenario so much it almost felt akin to just an unconscious reflex to put her hand in Kali’s and let her take her wherever she needed to be. Butterflies flocked around her headspace, and all she could think about was the warmth in that interlacing of fingers. She could watch the back of that varsity jacket forever. 

“Thank god for your softball arm!” Kali yelled over her shoulder.

“Yeah?” Robin shouted back excitedly.

“Yeah! I could’ve pitched it a lot harder though!” 

Robin looked down at the tile rolling under their feet. God... god she could do this forever. 

  
💾

  
Despite the long drive, they didn’t speak to each other much. Sure, they held hands over the dash just to make sure that yes, they were alive, and they were very much still together. For now, at least. They let The Ultimate Tape of Seduction say everything for them. 

Kali did make one comment. She smiled as she did. “So you’re really into this?” 

“No, Steve made this. Steve’s into it,” Robin excused. 

“Now I know you’ve _got_ to be playing right now,” Kali laughed. “I heard you singing it under your breath.”

Robin let out a short breathy chuckle. “Okay.” She put her hands together as if in cuffs near the steering wheel so that Kali would notice. Not that Kali had exactly been keeping her eyes on the road. “You caught me. What do you want to hear? That my favorite song is the 1973 hit, Let’s Get It On by ex-Motown African American superstar, Marvin Gaye?” 

_“Noooo!“_ Kali drawled playfully. “I know you did not just say that!”

“Say what?” Robin asked, starting to cry from the laughter.

“Oh, you know, my favorite song is just the 1973 hit, Let’s Get It On by ex-Motown African American superstar, Marvin Gaye,” she tried to mock Robin’s midwestern accent. “Like just all of that. That’s something...” Kali shook her head. “That’s just something I would say.”

“I know. That’s why I said it,” Robin hinted.

Kali furrowed her brow. Then, she realized and relaxed a bit, laughing slightly. “Okay. But you _cannot_ do that anymore.”

“Why not?” Robin threw her head back to laugh. 

“It’s freaky. I’ll freak out,” Kali replied. She looked at Robin to gauge her reaction. She pressed her lips together, leaning back with one arm on the wheel. It was a long stretch of straight road.

Robin rested her chin in her palm and her elbow on her knee. She hummed. “Then you can’t make illusions anymore,” she decided quickly. 

“No, that is not fair,” Kali said, accentuating her words with a couple raps on the wheel. 

“That’s totally fair,” Robin shot back. “If I can’t use my precognition, then you can’t use your tele-chroma-whatever.”

Kali’s smile was a mile wide. “Nerd. You remember that shit?”

“Obviously not.” Robin rolled her eyes. She gazed intently at Kali who’d fallen silent for a moment. She could just feel her trying to formulate a quick response.

“Fuck you, nerd,” was all she managed.

“In your dreams!” Robin leaned forward and laughed at Kali, who had pressed her face against the steering wheel to hide how big her toothy grin was.

“Get a room!” Nine yelled from the backseat.

  
💾

  
After all was said and done, Steve sat in the driver seat of his top down Ford, wearing sunglasses despite the dark of night. Robin was well aware he was only wearing them to pretend he was looking at Jonathan beside him as they spoke, but really watching her and Kali talk behind Kali’s van. Steve wasn’t slick, and though Robin appreciated the watchful eye, she couldn’t help but feel it was a little over the top. They were already in the middle of his driveway. Things didn’t get much safer than that.

Kali stood, arms crossed, back against the van, and one leg crossed under the other and propped against the bumper. She looked up at the clear night briefly. A flash of gold in her eyes allowed a rainbow butterfly to pass overhead and fade away. A wave of calm passed through her then, and she finally seemed ready to talk to Robin, but Robin knew she would have to be the one to speak first.

“So I feel like we should talk about _it_ ,” Robin started. She waved her hands around. “All of _it_. Eleven... my dad... the lab, and just... you know...” Robin pursed her lips. “Everything.”

“I really don’t want to. I want to just... drop it all. I’m done with confrontation,” Kali said lowly. She brushed her hair out of her eyes as she looked down. 

Robin huffed. To say this was frustrating would probably make it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the biggest understatement of all time. She knew what she needed to say in order for everything to progress naturally, but she just didn’t want the end of the conversation to come. No matter how much she felt like saying what was on her mind, she didn’t want to create that ending. Everything was fading, and she didn’t have a strong hold on details anymore, but at least she knew the basics of the conversation at hand. She wished she could just hurry up and get it over with. Time just didn’t work like that.

“You’re quiet,” Kali observed.

“Yeah, sorry... I’m just going through a lot,” Robin said, combing a hand up through the fringe of her hair. “It’s just... we can’t have what we have if we don’t get over everything. And I’m just not over it right now. I don’t think you are either.” 

“I know.” Kali exhaled upward. “And I think we both know where this is going. I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I can say with certainty...”

“That I do?” Robin finished for her, questioning despite knowing the answer.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Robin agreed.

Kali bit her lip, taking in all of Robin. It was only a couple hours ago that Robin realized she’d taken Kali’s tank top to wear in her sleepy morning state. Kali was clearly enjoying the look of it. Robin wished she could see her this hot and bothered at another time. A less sad time. Robin looked down. Well, she would. But it was a far time from now. From Kali’s perspective at least. Robin remembered experiencing every second of it. Every second of everything, yes, but specifically that next moment. They were only shadows on the wall of her memory’s labyrinth. 

Kali exhaled. “In that case, the only question I have...” She shrugged. “...well, I guess it’s ‘when’?” 

Robin bit the edge of her thumb, searching through her mind for the remnants of the timeline. “Should be the opening night of my play.”

“That long?” Kali’s voice fell. 

“I’m afraid so.” 

Kali bit her lip and leaned back against the van. “That long,” she repeated to the pavement.

Robin stared into Kali’s eyes for some time. They were black now, but the next time she’d be looking into them, they’d be a stark gold. She so badly wanted to see those gold eyes now. She tried to live in the remnants of that memory. 

Time stood still to converge at that moment. Robin held Kali’s face with a delicate touch that Kali returned in kind, meeting Robin in the middle as they shared a brief peck that seemed to hold more magnetism than any make out they’d had before or after the fact. Foreheads pressed together, their breathing was synchronized, neither opening their eyes because they were certain the other was still there, still hoping that something could be done to mend the fissure their pasts had made. There was only one thing that could mend it. Time. 

Robin drew back first, and Kali leaned forward, desperate to keep her thumbs settled on Robin’s cheeks and her fingers under her chin. She looked at Robin expectantly. Robin knew she couldn’t leave her with nothing. 

“We’ll be fine, short stuff,” Robin promised her with a cheeky smile. She’d never been more sure of anything in her life. 

Kali tucked Robin’s bangs behind her ear to press a small kiss up to her forehead. “We better be, tall ass,” she warned softly. 

They moved together naturally, rounding the van to make their split. But they hesitated, each knowing this was going to be the last time they’d see each other for a long time. Kali sighed and walked toward the van door. Robin stood, watching, waiting for her to go. 

She couldn’t take it any longer. She had to get one last kiss in. She ran to Kali’s window, getting a leg up on the fender and clutching the doorframe with every ounce of strength she had. All she needed really was the lock of their lips to keep her there as if it were a stronger gravitational pull than the earth and moon. God, oh God, she was gonna miss this. 

  
💾

  
All of Steve’s jokes about her selective horniness for Kali aside, Robin wasn’t sure if she had been fueled purely by that drive or not. It felt more personal than that. And she would’ve stuck around, but she wasn’t into the idea of fourth wheeling with Jonathan and Nancy again. It was back to status quo. Except... it wasn’t, really. Steve was happy, but Robin had to wait for hers. And even then, she’d have to wait again. And again. That didn’t make it not worth it. There was no one else she was more confident in. Or, maybe she was so desperate that she’d let her life depend on this one stranger. 

Fuck, who knew. Who knew really. Maybe Lady Luck finally just threw her a bone. 

Whatever, she still had to bike home. Had to ruminate on these feelings. She needed to draw this out a little longer to have something more than just blank space running through her mind.

Such a tired little town, Hawkins was. So much could happen in the span of a week, and yet, no one would blink an eye. Just a week ago, Robin had a solid crush on Tammy Thompson that she wasn’t going to be able to free herself from for the rest of her high school career. Now, Tammy Thompson was just a blip in her love life. She didn’t even exist. What was a Tammy Thompson in comparison to a Kali Prasad? Could she really settle down with girly girl Tammy Thompson when real danger and adventure laid out there with enigma wrapped in mystery wrapped in secrecy Kali Prasad? Because for all of the storm that surrounded them, they stood in the eye of the hurricane, for all of time. And that eye was never going to blink for a second. 

Robin kicked her brake down at 717 Plutarch Ave. She dragged her fingers through her hair and kept them there, staring down at the steps up to her house. Just yesterday she’d stood there with Kali, and Kali wouldn’t be there for a long time. She let her hair go in a mess. 

Now she had to brave her parents. And all the questions. Every single question. She had some questions of her own, but she was intent on taking them to her grave. It was going to be hard to look at her mom now, knowing what she knew about her father. Samson probably still felt the same. Yeah? Yeah, the same. He always stuck out like a sore thumb in the story of things. He still stuck out. 

So when he opened the door at her gentle knock, she was sort of relieved. She didn’t have to look at this tall, lanky, unwilling to shave that five-o-clock shadow man and see someone entirely different. 

Right hand on his hip, Samson looked down at his watch. “I was actually just about to go out, I— uh...” He bit his cheek awkwardly. Robin could fill in the blanks pretty well on her own. “So where have you been, young lady?” he asked, making an attempt to be stern.

Robin just sighed in response. “Steve’s,” she said automatically. She blinked slowly. God, there really was no better excuse. But it felt so much worse than usual. 

“Are you ever not at— woah.”

She really just wanted him to stop talking. That was definitely the only reason she had her head buried in his chest and arms wrapped tightly around him. She definitely wasn’t crying. Correction— sobbing. She definitely wasn’t sobbing. 

“Do we... do we do this?” Samson asked, awkwardly rocking her and looking over his shoulder. “Should I get Edith?”

Robin couldn’t respond, unable to even draw a breath. She just needed to get it out. She didn’t need questions right now. She just needed warmth to fill the Kali-sized hole in her heart. 

Not that that would ever be possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... there's a lot to unpack here.
> 
> *leaves you, in the black of night, like the cold mistress i am, having unpacked nothing*


	8. any colour you like.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin finally gets a lead role. Dustin has to choose the spotlight color.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh sorry for the late upload. i wanted to make sure i had chapter nine ready to go for friday and like, it wasn't terrible, but it's been like pulling my own teeth lmao.
> 
> (apologies in advance for the end of the chapter, i wanted to play around with syntax and pacing)

An oriental lily sat at the doorstep. For each of the eight flower heads, five or so purple petals enshrouded three filaments, each topped with an anther, pollen resting on its otherwise barren landscape. Its scent wandered in the air, dancing lackadaisically around the porch like a fairy who’s had entirely too much punch. Like perfume, the aroma tended to draw Robin in, and she couldn’t help but sit next to the plant for hours while she listened to music and zoned out about... anything, really. It felt nice to get lost.

Robin usually let her gaze fall on the weeping willow in her front lawn. Where it had once extended its creepy, long fingers across the yard like a creature Robin wished dearly to forget about, it now hung lazily, with beautifully adorned garlands of purple blossoms. It almost seemed like she’d meant to plant the sapling at the age of three, just for it to grow and display its lavender beauty now. 

She got the same feeling with the oriental lily, although, this time, she knew for certain. Fall came and went. She’d smoked a couple blunts on the porch. Under a particularly intense fog, she’d smelled a very strong and vivacious scent that she only recognized later in the home improvement store. She’d also been watching a sleek car pull up. Out of it came... well, she couldn’t see them. And by the time they’d begun to make their way toward her, her mother had shaken her out of it in time for dinner. 

Her mother had a funny way of knowing things in advance too. She’d known this since that day, but now it became more and more obvious. Her mother made the food she was craving before she could speak it aloud. She’d wake her up from an afternoon nap in time for her favorite radio show, which her mother had never heard about. It was easy to write off little things like this. But, later in autumn, her mother stuck an umbrella in her knapsack when the weather predicted sun for the week. When a rainstorm struck instead, Robin was convinced. 

In a way, she knew too. Otherwise, she probably would’ve put the umbrella up before she left, disregarding her mother’s action. But she didn’t. She’d gotten that same gut feeling. She knew why, but it was best not to dredge up those old feelings.

Ruminating on everything that had happened on her sweet eighteenth seemed to be the best option so far. Robin’s life got back on track almost as soon as it had stepped off, and she hadn’t heard from Kali since. She tried not to wonder where she was or what she was doing now, but she couldn’t help but feel the absence between her fingertips.

Besides that, the only change seemed to be the nightmares. God, the nightmares. They’d always start off as pleasant, far-off memories. Robin might be laying in the warmth of the California sun, sand beneath her, and tan fingers intertwined with hers. She’d caress that rounded cheek and press her pale lips against a darker shade. Then, it would go south very soon as every memory of herself being on a beach suddenly collided, and she’d be walking, swimming, talking, building sandcastles, and kicking sand all at once. Robin became a rope, tugged, and tugged, and tugged until only a single thread remained between the two ends. When it snapped, a searing, white hot flame would suddenly burn in her chest, throwing her figure up into a sitting position with no other option than to scream until her lungs gave out. 

After any of these, she’d call Steve—even if it was four in the morning—to take her to Jonathan’s. She’d clamber into the Ford that would pull up just ten minutes later. They’d drive for a couple hours, remaining silent and listening to radio static(they tried to converse the first time, but Steve’s words only echoed in her ears with sentences that hadn’t yet happened), and then finally, they’d arrive at the Byers’ home, and El would be awoken to put Robin back together again. 

It was no trouble to Steve at least. He liked to see Jonathan since their relationship was progressing along rather smoothly when compared to his relationship with Nancy—which, though sluggish, was catching back up to that grossly adorable power couple cuteness Robin remembered seeing her junior year. Groggy nights meant coffee in the kitchen. Robin tended to join them after El scuttled back off to bed and Will was assured nothing was wrong. Just Robin again. Just woke up screaming again. Just nearly drowned herself in the river of time again. Nothing to worry about. 

So they’d stay a while and talk a while and smile through the pain a while and drink a while. Coffee, not alcohol, unfortunately. It was hard to forget about Kali when she was staring into a drink as black as her eyes. Then again, it wasn’t Kali she was trying to forget about, was it? No, just the future that was so inevitably intertwined with hers. That’s all.

Sometimes it really did feel like her life was all just one big error. 

When she’d first said that to Steve, she’d let it slip out with a bit of facetiousness. Now, she knew deep down there wasn’t the slightest bit of sarcasm in that statement. She’d meant it entirely. She hadn’t completely meant it yet, but she would eventually.

The day after her birthday progressed well enough. Steve had managed to get his hands on a Star Wars action figure set. He’d given Luke and Leia to Nancy and Mike, keeping Chewbacca for himself and giving Han Solo to Robin. He reminded Robin that this was no indicator of who would actually be who given their lives had suddenly become a crossover with Star Wars since he was absolutely, without a doubt, Han Solo. But, Robin liked Han Solo, and so he bequeathed the figure unto her. Robin smiled, then. He really was such a Chewbacca—loyal to the end.

But when Halloween came around, he fashioned himself a makeshift Han costume, and Robin refused to don the Chewbacca mask he picked up, giving it instead to Dustin. Robin had actually been pretty proud of her Ellen Ripley outfit, made complete with a yellow cat plush toy to carry around. She even let Steve do her hair in that prissy Farrah Fawcett style that just looked so damn good on Sigourney Weaver for some reason. 

Being adults, of course she and Steve abstained from trick or treating. They bounced around a couple high school parties, getting in on the good memories of some underclassmen. However, Halloween night only lasted a half an hour for Robin after bearing witness to a couple dressed as Batman and his faithful sidekick. Thoroughly embarrassed for staring so long at them, she’d fled the house with a red face and a head swimming with the voice of the past. Time achingly crawled around on her watch as she laid in Steve’s Ford, wishing she were wasted or stoned out of her mind. Maybe then there might be some explanation why the hour stretched on into eternity until Steve finally arrived at the driver’s door. A panic marked his face which would mark his face again and again every time they were to split up. Robin saw wrinkles and grey in that face. And when she began to cry, frustrated with the converging points in time, Steve resolved to take her once more to El. 

After that episode, Robin found a new paranoia surrounding her. Steve barely left her side, slept on her couch at least a couple times a week, stuck around the video store after his shift, and often visited her during lunch at school. To clarify, the paranoia wasn’t hers. She’d accepted her fate a while before the Halloween incident, once the nightmares started. Steve, fearing the worst breakdown, apparently decided he had to be there to rescue her from them whenever one decided to rear its ugly head. Unlike the future itself though, these moments were unpredictable. And thus, Steve became her shadow. If Jonathan or Nancy had noticed, they did nothing about it. In fact, Robin found herself forced to be a fourth wheel to their ménage à trois again. 

She began to wonder if he’d planted Dustin in the theater troupe to make sure she wasn’t losing her mind off his clock. As it turned out, Steve had not been whispering in Dustin’s ear as she’d thought—Dustin was just really into theater. She’d missed him coming in late to auditions for Romeo and Juliet. He’d been doing something with the AV club and only managed to get away once most everyone else had already left the auditorium. He didn’t get any parts, even though he was only shooting for a background role. Instead, he was given the job of a stage tech. He didn’t mind. He still had three more years of school to get a good part in a play. Robin appreciated his hopeful outlook and made sure to show him all the ropes of the trade. She got the feeling he’d be doing it for a couple years more. Then... maybe she’d see him on Broadway. Or someone who looked like him at least. He’d probably grow a mustache one of these days. She wondered how he felt about singing opera.

It was nice to talk to someone who knew nothing of her past. Or her future, for that matter. Dustin had always tried to keep in contact since meeting her at the mall, sometimes tracking her down after her third period ecology and his third period English. They’d have a bit of a catch up on their friends, high school drama, and their general lives. Once, they found out her stepdad had gone out with his mom on a couple dates and avoided each other like the plague for a solid week. But with the production of Romeo and Juliet underway, it became harder to keep up the distance. 

And god, what a trainwreck that was turning out to be. Derek Posey was being a drama queen, or king, rather, as he demanded to be able to wear his “sick threads” on stage and not that “fairy shit” period piece that the director had asked him to don for the performance. Robin wasn’t a fan of the ribbon-heavy Juliet costume, but Romeo’s was pretty nice and reminiscent of marching band attire. 

It was becoming increasingly apparent that he’d only auditioned for Romeo so that he could be close to his girlfriend, Jennifer Tyler, who didn’t get Juliet. Thus, he took all his rage out on the rest of the troupe for the director’s decision. Robin didn’t care for Jennifer, and she hadn’t seen her audition to really judge. But Tammy had been begging their director to put on Romeo and Juliet for as long as they’d been in theater together, dreaming about how she’d get her first kiss on stage. It only made sense that she’d get to be Juliet.

So, it really stung the spirit of the troupe when Tammy had a car accident just a month before the show. She wasn’t actually in a car when it happened. A speed demon crashed into the fire hydrant by the library and ended up spinning into Tammy. She’d broken her leg from the impact. It wouldn’t be safe to walk on until a good couple weeks after the show. 

Derek had asked the director to reconsider Jennifer, but he was quickly shot down. From the rafters, Robin and Dustin watched the spectacular argument spark until it almost seemed like there would be no Romeo, either. Robin hadn’t expected to be called to the stage. There were no understudies cast. No one ever had that much to do in Hawkins, and no one expected a tragedy like this to befall poor Tammy. So, as the director later explained to her, the task fell on Robin to take up the mantle for her dedication as a sound tech and boldness in auditions. Robin didn’t really know what to say. Yes, of course. She did say yes. 

Thankfully, she’d managed to snag a copy of the script off the Lady Capulet who’d claimed to know all her lines by now. “Now” being a month before Tammy has her accident. She’d excused her interest in getting an early peek into Juliet’s lines as an attempt to hang out with Tammy more by way of line reading together. There were whispers—mostly by Derek and the dumb posse of theater boys he’d managed to recruit—that Robin had somehow caused Tammy’s accident, angry that she hadn’t gotten the role of Romeo so she could mack on her girl-crush. Really, Robin didn’t know why she’d auditioned for Romeo anymore. Where it had once felt like a show of confidence, it now felt like the meeting of pawns, with one pawn now being taken off the board by the move and the other advancing forward in its place. 

Robin managed to get her lines down while brushing her teeth, eating breakfast, waiting for first period to start, sitting in the bleachers during third period gym, eating lunch, and helping Dustin with the lights. 

She’d been deeply engrossed in the second scene of the second act when Dustin tapped her on the shoulder. He’d asked her what color to make the spotlight for that scene exactly. She replied, “Any color you like.” 

Looking now to the oriental lily beside her, she sighed. She should’ve known he’d pick purple.

💾

Call time had been twelve, and yet, only an hour before the show at eight did the director manage to mention the need for one of the actors to take up money for tickets. Somehow, Robin ended up agreeing to work at the ticket table just outside the auditorium door. Juliet wouldn’t appear until the third scene of the first act, which would give her time to get changed while the final pieces of the audience got to their seats, and the show began. She didn’t care. This was the way things had to happen, she tended to remind herself now. 

After a couple average joes came, paid, and went, Steve strode in, Nancy and Jonathan at either side of him. They dressed to the nines, Steve and Jonathan in dress shirts, and Nancy in the cutest yellow cocktail dress Robin had ever seen. God, if Steve didn’t have a tight grip on Nancy, Robin would’ve absolutely scooped her up given the chance. Robin couldn’t believe the effort they were putting into this. Jonathan even brought his instant camera. She almost felt bad for them, but she didn’t know why yet.

“Sorry your Juliet couldn’t be here tonight, Robs,” Steve said as he slipped her the fifteen dollars.

Robin quirked a smile. “It’s fine,” she said out of the side of her mouth, ducking to grab three tickets from the roll below the table. She emerged and handed them to Steve. “I’m just happy to see you guys.”

Steve slinked his arms around Jonathan and raised his camera to his eye, much to Jonathan’s annoyance and protests. “Well, stand up then. Let’s get a picture of Hawkin’s future star,” Steve said before Jonathan took the camera back to do the picture-taking himself. Best to leave it to the pros. 

Blushing, Robin rose from her seat. She wasn’t in much. Just her patchwork leather jacket, a Star Wars shirt, and jeans. It felt a little much, but Jonathan clearly had a roll of film to burn, so she posed as much as he’d asked by herself, with Nancy, with Steve, and with all three of them in a tight squeeze of a shot. All paparazzi-ed out, Robin ducked out from between Steve and Jonathan to get back to her post. 

A hand grasped her shoulder with a gentle, barely there grip. Robin looked over her shoulder and turned around. Steve smiled sadly. 

“I heard you that day. I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I just...” Steve held his hands up. “I couldn’t help it. I know you’re gonna see her again. So just... just please tell me you’re not going to actually break a leg or anything tonight,” Steve joked with a short laugh. She somehow knew this was code for “don’t do anything dangerous” but she couldn’t promise she wouldn’t. 

She settled for, “How else do you get in a cast?” Robin shook her head and then looked up at him with a beaming smile. She had to promise him anyway. He wouldn’t leave until she did. “I’ll be fine, Steve. I swear.”

By this, Steve was contented. The group said their “good lucks” and “goodbyes” and headed into the auditorium. Robin watched after them as she got back to her seat.

A cluster of freshmen, the group Robin lovingly referred to as Steve’s personal collection of dinguses, grouped around her table for tickets to see Dustin’s spotlight work. They couldn’t choose who to circle around and hide El(in a very obviously fake blonde wig), and who should actually go up to get the tickets. Getting the tickets ended up being easy enough, but dealing with the popcorn and drink orders which she had to relay between the kids and the boy playing Count Paris was a whole other thing entirely. By the end of it, Robin almost felt guilty for hoping she didn’t have to see another underclassman approach the table.

Her parents followed soon after the gaggle of kids. Her mother was eager to tell her to break a leg and skedaddle off to the auditorium. Every so often, Samson looked over his shoulder. It was a weird bit of paranoia she’d never witnessed in either of them. Did her mother know something? If she did, had she told Samson? Robin didn’t remember much of this day herself, only that Kali would appear at some point. Did her mother know this? 

Robin looked out across the halls. The only lights on were those that led from the front door to the auditorium. The west hall had no lights, and Robin wouldn’t have put it past Kali to take this route to her. The north hall was similarly dark, but Robin couldn’t see it, vision obscured by her location just far enough down the hall not to be able to see around the corner. Nothing seemed to be creeping out from the black. 

As Robin craned her body to see around the corner, the clear sound of a wallet dropping to the floor alerted her to another customer.

“Oh, donuts.”

Instinctively, Robin had slipped under the table to grab the wallet, but now questioned if she wanted to get back up. She rose slowly, hand raised above her head, wallet hanging limply between her fingers. Another set of fingers took it gingerly. She stood, pushing her seat back slightly. Admittedly, she hadn’t expected the man to be exactly her height. She didn’t expect her eyes to be looking back at her, even if they were tucked away behind a thick pair of black glasses. They looked at her so blindly. Like he didn’t even know her. 

He held out five dollars, smiling with rosy cheeks that were absent from her own face, replaced with freckles instead. His thin brows were raised expectantly below combed over blonde-but-slightly-graying hair. 

“Is everything alright?” he asked, looking over his shoulder briefly, then furrowing his brow at Robin.

Fuck. She shouldn’t have stared like that. She blinked quickly and shook her head. “No, no, I’m sorry, sir,” she apologized profusely as she exchanged his money for a ticket. She steeled herself as she handed him the small slip of paper. “So, are you here to see someone?” she asked, hoping he’d name the girl playing Lady Capulet or the nurse.

“My daughter’s in the play. I heard she got the lead role,” he replied cheerily. He smiled down at the floor and pushed up his glasses. “I... well, admittedly, I haven’t seen her in awhile. I... don’t even know what she looks like now. I hope I can make up for... not being there, y’know.” 

“Right,” Robin murmured, combing a hand through her hair. If they really were strangers, this seemed a bit of an overshare. 

They engaged in a bit of a staring match as Robin held out the ticket which he hadn’t yet taken. Thankfully there was no one behind him, and since the show would start soon, Count Paris had left his position at the popcorn. Robin sorely wished she could leave as well. Neither of them were going to say what they wanted so badly to say. 

Finally, he realized the oddity that would’ve been staring at Robin if it were not for what they’d assumed of each other, took his ticket, and entered the auditorium. Robin waited a few moments more and then followed behind him. Romeo awaited Juliet, and she couldn’t keep her waiting for long.

💾

Act one ended, and the first intermission began. With the piano typically used for choir concerts, the boy playing Tybalt gave a gentle performance of Gymnopédie No. 1, just loud enough for the last row in the auditorium to hear the keys’ whispers. Robin found herself nodding ever so slightly as she went back over her lines. It was enough to put anyone to sleep. She had half a mind to throw a shoe at the boy to make him play something with a little more spirit.

The first act went smoothly enough, though Robin couldn’t help but search the crowd for her parents more often than just a couple times. They sat behind Steve and his partners. She could only imagine how many embarrassing pictures she was going to have to take with all of them. 

But there was one man out of the picture. He sat next to her mother, but he didn’t exactly seem in the loop. It was almost as if he was some stranger who’d followed them in. They were pretending not to know each other. Her mother leaned more toward her stepfather. It was disconcerting to say the least, and it certainly reinforced some... uncomfortable feelings she had towards the man. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t acknowledge, not even inwardly, the identity of this man. After all this time, here he was. He didn’t come back like he should’ve. He didn’t come back with a bang, but with a whisper. 

Did he even realize what he’d done? Here he came waltzing in, all smiles and donuts, but what about the horrible experiments and ruined lives? She’d had the break from Kali to ruminate on all of this, but she realized now that no time would’ve been enough to come to terms with this strange package of good and evil dichotomy that life had just dropped into her arms. When did it stop? She was never one for philosophy, and she wasn’t going to be consulting Aristotle or Kant for family therapy anytime soon. She just wanted a clear cut answer. Was he a good man? Or was he a bad man? She didn’t want to make that decision herself.

The curtain flew open as Dustin came barreling in from the opposite end of the auditorium. Robin closed her script and stood to meet him halfway. He took a long breath, hands on his knees. 

“What’s going on? We only have a couple minutes of intermission left,” Robin reminded him.

“Sorry, it’s just... I just...” Dustin drew another breath, finally able to look up at her. “I saw a man with the— the— you know the—!”

“The?”

“The face! The mouth! The teeth!” Dustin screamed.

Robin threw a hand against his mouth, dragging him away from the eyes and ears of the rest of her troupe. She let him go once they stood in a corner but kept her hands on his shoulders to confine his panic.

“Who is he?” Dustin hissed up at her behind clenched teeth.

“Who is _who_?“ Robin asked, still not getting a clear picture.

“The man with the demogorgon mouth! And there was a girl with yellow eyes and purple hair, too. Nobody else saw them but me!”

Stern expression melting into a smile, Robin felt a wave of relief wash over her. Her heart did flips as she realized she would soon be reunited with her Kali. Though, she worried she wasn’t ready for the reunion just yet. There still might’ve been things to sort out. Especially what with the elephant in the room.

“Where did they go?” Robin demanded, looking over her shoulder.

“They’re somewhere back here. _Backstage_ ,” Dustin emphasized with a hiss, peering frantically all around Robin. 

Gymnopédie slowed to a halt. The audience clapped, louder than they had for the first act. Inwardly, Robin questioned if they should’ve had a concerto instead. The chords of Toccata and Fugue struck the piano discordantly. The pianist should probably expect a couple shoes in the next few seconds.

“Alright,” Robin said. “Intermission’s almost over. Get back to your post. I’ll keep an eye out,” she assured him. 

💾

“He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”

A voice that was music to her ears. 

That was her cue. Robin stepped forward. The balcony, which was constructed as a final exam for the woodshop students, was sturdy enough for any sized person. Still, Robin couldn’t help but feel like a flock of butterflies had migrated into her entire being when she stepped out upon it in rehearsals. She knew her agonizingly slow footsteps gave her fear away now. 

She would’ve been remiss not to keep her eyes closed, but every image in her head seemed to be an unflattering crash to the ground. Eventually she had to see her Romeo, kneeling before her. Even from so far below, she could see those golden eyes sparkling in the glow of violet light upon the stage. Robin took a proud step forward to the railing, nearly forgetting that not only the railing but also a five-foot drop stood before her and her Romeo. 

Allowing herself a passionate sigh, she watched as the girl below managed an illusion so grand it had the whole audience fooled. 

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun,” she delivered, standing with a hand rising toward Robin. 

Robin tilted her head in confusion. There was no way she was asking her to jump. Her Romeo drew closer, sidling toward the balcony, still with her arm outstretched as she spoke the rest of her lines. Robin took a tentative step backward. The idea of falling no matter what cushion laid before her was not ideal.

“I am too bold,” she declared. Robin couldn’t have agreed more. 

There had to be some other way without disrupting the performance. Robin rested her hand on her cheek, trying to reason it out. 

“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might _touch that cheek!_ “ she said hurriedly and with a hiss, as if speaking behind her teeth. She twirled her hand in an aggravated motion, widening her eyes up at Robin. 

Pulling up the sides of her dress, Robin walked backward and took a running leap over the balcony. 

The audience drew a collective breath of anticipation. There were murmurs. 

Thankfully, Robin didn’t hear the rush of anyone to the stage. She opened her eyes to find that she was staring at the back curtains. Her chin nestled into the crook of Kali’s neck. 

“Ay, me,” Robin breathed.

“She speaks!” Kali shouted exuberantly, twirling her princess around. She leaned downward, dipping Robin. 

Golden eyes bore into Robin’s soft blue with relief and a rather justified desire. They closed as Kali leaned down to close the gap. Robin tightened her grip around Kali’s neck as she deepened the kiss, pressing against Kali with all the force she could muster. The soft round lips stood no chance against the thin ones, which fought as if in danger of being let go. Finally, Kali drew back first, amused that she’d been the first one to part. 

Robin stared out at the crowd. Most were shocked, and a couple girls stood up to leave. She could see Steve making a poor attempt to contain his laughter. Nancy and Jonathan’s attempts to get him to shut up failed just as much. Robin looked up at Kali, whose eyes were still golden, though her nose was beginning to bleed. 

“Just to be clear, you are disguising yourself Derek Posey, right now?” Robin whispered.

“If that’s the dumbass who showed up to the performance in street clothes, then yes. He’s currently knocked out backstage,” Kali explained nervously.

“Jennifer Tyler is going to decapitate me,” Robin realized. At this, Kali let Robin get to her feet. “So, do you have a plan or are you intending on finishing the performance, Romeo?” she asked a little louder than she’d anticipated.

Shrieks began to fly out from the audience as people scattered, jumping out of their seats, throwing popcorn and drinks, and running into each other. Robin gave Kali a horrified look, then, noticing a red glow under the purple light, whipped around, entranced by the fire that had caught the curtain.

“It’s not real,” Kali said, calmly rubbing her nose against the back of her sleeve. “Nine should—“

The fire alarm pealed out and sprays of water erupted from the ceiling with a loud hiss. Once the spotlight shut off, Robin finally drew her attention to her junior stage tech. He stood at the railing, somewhat frozen. Robin started toward him, but found her movement interrupted by a grip.

“And there’s the fire alarm now. We’re home free!” Kali announced, hugging Robin tightly. When Robin didn’t return it, Kali stepped back slightly. “What’s up, stiffness?”

“Read the empty room,” Robin said harshly. “My first and only lead show just got cancelled. Forgive me for freezing up here. And secondly, we’re not home free. We gotta get Derek. Also, I don’t know if you know this, but my dad’s in town.”

Kali cursed under her breath. She pushed her hair up, holding her hand there. “Fuck, what’re we gonna do, Robin?” 

No future thoughts came to Robin. She felt her chest tighten. “I’ll see what I can piece together. Go wake up Derek. I’ll get Dustin.”

“Dustin?” Kali furrowed her brow, so thoroughly confused that the gold melted from her eyes as her illusions dropped.

“Go wake that man up!” Robin ordered over her shoulder, running stage left toward the stairs to the auditorium’s actually professionally-built and very sturdy balcony. 

God this was all so fucked up. Of course Kali had to show up like the bang of a gong. That is to say frighteningly, shockingly, and yet, Robin secretly wished she’d would bang that gong over and over just so she could feel the jitter and reverb again and again. If only she could just ride that high into Kali’s arms and not into what was sure to be another web of complications. 

Dustin met her in the middle of the aisle, having rushed down the stairs as soon as Robin came for him. The panic on his face didn’t disappear so much as it just multiplied the moment they convened.

“Who the fuck was that? Why did everybody freak the fuck out? What the fuck is going on?” he screeched. 

There was no calming him down at this point, but Robin edged away from the stairs, hopping toward the auditorium entrance. “I’ll explain everything tomorrow, just get out of here,” she said hurriedly. 

A year ago, this would’ve been the moment she would’ve wondered if there would even _be_ a tomorrow. There was something satisfying in that wonder. Something to live for. Now it just felt like she was being dragged through the road. Yes, of course there’s a tomorrow, and here’s the exact path to take toward it. 

So that path now was through the auditorium doors. Dustin ran off down the halls. Robin remained, waiting for Kali. When she didn’t come, it only felt natural to move on. She’d see Kali again, after all. The parking lot? Probably.

But what if she just waited at the door a little longer? What was stopping her? Nothing. Except, well, the fear that if she did, everything would change. What was her end goal? Paris. Paris with Kali. What if one moment’s hesitance meant that ending was forsaken? And what if a new, better future laid in wait? Could she get her Paris sooner? Or was there something even better than that? What if Paris was the best she could get? Was it worth the risk? 

All this internal soliloquy lent to Robin walking back and forth between the auditorium door and the beginning of the senior lockers. The nonopening doors. The empty hall to the right of the lockers. The still very closed doors. The dark, dark hall. The doors. The hall. The Kali-Hasn’t-Come-Out-Yet doors. The barely lit hall. The—

The barely lit hall. Robin stopped her pace back toward the doors. She gave a quick glance over her shoulder. When this revealed nothing more than what she already knew, she turned fully around to face the hall. The light was still there at the end, barely flickering. It grew, steady and approaching. There was a hint of a crackle as well as the clack of a steel toed shoe. Robin shuddered. She couldn’t move, and at this point, she wasn’t sure if it was from fear or from predestination. 

The flaming figure arrived at the end of the lockers. His flames dissipated, and he stared at her for a solid few seconds. Robin took in his change of wardrobe. An aviator’s jacket, ripped jeans, and boots. She wondered who he Terminated to get these. She smirked now that she could see him in the fluorescents. He had a nasty bite mark that covered nearly half of his neck. It looked as if a demodog had attached itself there and in his struggle to get it off of himself, he ended up dragging it across his neck before it let go. 

“How was the walk?” Robin called out. 

Cain crossed his arms. “Fine,” he grumbled. “I had a shortcut... but even then, I didn’t expect it to take so long. I think I stumbled into a... food place... they were... unnecessarily kind,” he croaked.

“A diner,” Robin corrected.

“Sure.” Cain sighed. “Listen, Buckley. I’m not here to get attached to this town. I’m not even going to... skirt around the fact that I know who you are... or what that means.”

“Give it to me straight, Ghost Rider,” Robin said, edging closer to him. She stopped at the middle of the lockers and leaned against one. Plenty of space to breathe, and plenty of nearness to listen.

“Buckley,” Cain said the name with a heavy affectation, as if he wanted to yank out his tongue for the high crime of muttering the name. “I know he’s here. I know he came looking for you. He’s been planning that. My brother... he used to... crawl in the vents.”

Robin raised a brow. “I’m aware.”

“So when you let me go, I... I naturally had to take a look around... everything’s changed... I... kind of miss the bustle.” His lip twitched with just the faintest hint of a smile. He dropped it quickly and began to fidget with his pinky finger. “Buckley, I... I saw him. _Dr._ Buckley, I mean. I just had to see if he was in his office and... I just... out of everyone I didn’t understand why it had to be him. Out of everyone!” He fanned his hands, having accidentally set fire to them. Once they were out, he shoved them in his pockets. “So I’ve been in the vents. I wanted— needed... to speak to you. I... I came here just to speak to you.”

“To be quite honest, I thought you would’ve wanted to kill me,” Robin said bluntly. She took a couple brave steps forward and leaned again on a locker.

“Well, I...” Cain covered his mouth. He swallowed and shoved his hands in his pockets again. He looked up to avoid Robin’s piercing gaze. “I did. I did, but I realized that anger was... misplaced. I need... I think I need your help, actually.” A shaky hand drew out a floppy disk. “I think Dr. Buckley is—“ He cut himself off and stilled. Then, he rushed Robin and threw her backward

  
_BANG_

  
With a clattering crash, the floppy disk fell to the floor. Cain slammed himself against the lockers in front of her, holding onto his leg in what had to be excruciating pain. Robin didn’t know for sure though. She hadn’t ever been shot. Yet. Nevertheless she peered over Cain to find the source of the bullet. And, well, speak of the devil and he shall appear. 

From around the corner, Kali and Nine came running toward the sound. Recklessly ignoring the man with a gun, Kali blindly ran toward Robin, pulling her away from Cain and into her own embrace. Robin didn’t struggle against her, but stood limp so as to give her the hint that now was not the time to run. 

Catching the hint, Kali moved away as much as she could while still holding onto Robin’s arms. Robin threw her another hint in the form of a quick glance toward the floppy disk on the floor. Kali let go and turned around, hiding Robin’s figure as she dipped down to grab the disk. 

“He’s subdued. We can take him now,” a voice said— Dr. Buckley’s. 

Robin looked to Cain for some sort of reply or protest. He just crouched against the locker, wincing and hissing in pain. He didn’t look angry, more, he looked like someone who understood that they’d gotten what they’d deserved. But Robin begged to differ on that account.

Having tucked the disk away into her bust, Robin rose up to leer over Kali’s shoulder. She wished she had glasses as he did so she could take them off and blind herself temporarily to his visage. So unlike her own, and yet exactly like her own in all the places she always hated. She hated them because she didn’t know where they came from. There was a spark of hatred for them now but for an equal but opposite reason. 

He just stood there, all still, all calm. All scarf and long overcoat and boater hat. Just like the Invisible Man, except Robin didn’t get the privilege of bandages around his face. A gun in his hands, and yet he remained stiff and awkward. Nothing like Nine, who was basically jumping with joy at a target not-well-marked. Despite being a terrifying emotion at the time, at least it was an emotion. But he just... stood there, looking as if he had no pity for the poor creature he just shot. Like he only wounded an animal. Robin felt a slight churn in her stomach. She probably shouldn’t have been staring so hard.

Nine trudged past him, crouching beside his twin. Whatever he said to him, if anything at all, it led to him picking him up under the arm and allowing him to lean against him. Nine led him toward Dr. Buckley. Given a silent nod of approval, they disappeared around the corner. 

Dr. Buckley waved the gun in an overly casual manner. “Sorry you had to see that, Robin. The feds wanted their assets back. But let’s catch up tomorrow, yeah? We’ll go to your favorite diner.” He flashed a smile, but Robin couldn’t discern how much sincerity laid behind it, or how much he actually knew about her diner preferences.

With that, Dr. Buckley disappeared behind the corner, after his “assets.” Robin blinked, long and slow. She wished that could be the end of it. That she didn’t care. But unfortunately, no. She couldn’t let the curtain close on this act.

“You’re not okay with this are you?” Robin asked Kali quietly.

Kali looked around nervously before settling on Robin with wide eyes. “Oh,” she uttered. “ _Oh fuck_.”

“ _‘Oh fuck?’_ “ Robin echoed.

“ _Oh fuck_ as in, I thought you had a plan, _oh fuck_ ,” Kali explained, pushing her hair up. 

Robin let her mouth fall open. “Why would I have a plan?”

“You can see the future, you dolt!” Kali reminded her.

“Not on a dime!” 

“Well, what do you want, a Scooby snack?”

With her hands over her eyes, Robin threw her back to the lockers. “I don’t actually know what triggers them,” she groaned, “except sleep and... uh... stress? Maybe?” 

“Robin, I’m breaking up with you.”

Robin’s hands shot down to her sides, revealing a suddenly pallid countenance. “What? Why?” she demanded.

Kali shrugged with a smirk. “I thought that would be stressful enough.”

Robin threw her head back and gave a sharp scream. “We’re wasting time!” She took Kali’s hand and started down the hall.

“I suppose you would know,” Kali murmured with a slight titter, delicately securing her fingers around Robin’s as they ran.

💾

Outside Hawkins High, police cars and fire trucks were on standby, covering the parking lot in red, blue, and white glows. Robin spotted the director speaking with Chief Callahan. She wondered how anyone could explain a fire that everyone had seen when no proof of burning or smoke of any sort existed in the auditorium. 

A few cars here and there still littered the lot. Probably just onlookers waiting for the whole school to catch. Maybe some concerned family of those who might’ve still been inside. In the heat of the moment, Robin found she’d forgotten about Derek, but at this point there was more to worry about than dumb boys who really thought wearing street clothes to a Shakespeare performance was cool and not offensive to the people who had to walk around in big poofy and frilly dresses that rode up in the back.

“Robin!” 

Steve collided with her just enough to jar her backward, but not enough to break her grip on Kali. He gave her an anxious once over, and realizing Kali was there too, he crossed his arms and set his gaze purely on Robin.

“I’m not a rocket scientist, but I’m going to go ahead and wager that—“

“Yes, I made the fire up!” Kali interrupted him. 

“Ok, but next time just let me have that, would ya?” Steve moaned. “Anyway, where’ve you been? I just saw that demogorgon dude hobble off with some old man and a limping guy. Isn’t the demogorgon man yours?” he asked Kali.

Kali looked up, annoyed. “Yes, he’s _mine_. Which way did he go?” 

Steve pointed to an old... Robin squinted. She was gonna say Sedan. It was a Sedan. Probably. A slim, cream-colored, junky old Sedan. It’d be easier to classify it as a junker. He pointed to a junker, where Nine was speaking to Dr. Buckley. Seems they’d already gotten Cain in the car.

“I’m gonna wager that this is a bad thing,” Steve said.

“You’re really cleaning house, Steve,” Kali observed with a raised brow of annoyance. “I figured Robin would have a plan or else I wouldn’t have let it get this bad.”

“Well, I can’t really see much consciously after El fixed my sight,” Robin complained. “It comes to me in my sleep so why don’t I just go find somewhere to curl up with a good book, some warm milk, and some nice, soft lighting for atmosphere?”

“Just get her to unfix it,” Steve said under his breath, probably knowing this was a dumb suggestion. 

But wait. 

No. That wasn’t a dumb suggestion. That wasn’t a dumb suggestion at all. 

“Do you think she could?” Robin asked.

“I mean— yeah, probably, maybe? Sure,” Steve settled. 

Kali took her hand back. “Then you two work on that. I’ll go distract Dr. Buckley,” she said, heading off in their direction. Then, she turned, stomping back toward Robin. She grabbed her collar and pressed a long, breathless kiss onto her lips like a stamp of certified love. She hung her head. “If you can’t come up with anything, I need you to promise me you’ll get El as far away from here as possible.”

Steve nodded with a caught expression. “Oh, yeah no problem. Not a problem at all. We can definitely do that. Why wouldn’t we be able to do that? We’re great at that. That’s like our—“ He yelped as Robin sent a sharp jab of her elbow into his arm. 

“I promise, Kal’. No matter what we will see each other again,” Robin said softly, now cupping Kali’s cheeks.

“We better,” Kali said, loosing herself from Robin’s fingertips.

Thankfully, El had stayed behind with the other kids. This was only because her ride, Joyce, was waiting on Jonathan, who was waiting on Steve, who was waiting on Robin to finally come out of the building. 

While everyone waited on Robin to make her grand exit, her parents had decided to start up a conversation with Joyce. If anyone knew anything about missing kids, it was her. She’d done well to calm them down as this was certainly nothing to worry about compared to everything ever that had happened to Will, as Robin had come to learn during an all-nighter at Jonathan’s. They seemed to have come to terms with it all. Robin felt a little jealous. To just let go of the past like that even with how recent it was. 

Maybe she just needed to move. It would be nice to just leave. With Kali. 

Feeling at least one pair of eyes on her, Robin looked at her feet. She couldn’t keep a straight face thinking about Kali even now that they were relatively solid. She approached the group around the station wagon.

“Where have you been?” Samson shrilled. He hurried toward Robin to check for burns. “We’ve been worried sick,” he said, terribly cliched. 

He then went on to say other, naturally cliche things while Robin gave him a blank look of _I’m fine, Dad, and the fire is the least of my worries right now, to be quite honest with you.”_

Steve walked up from behind Robin and rested his elbow on her shoulder. Ignoring Robin’s death glare, he put on that natural Harrington charm. “Joyce, can we borrow El for a bit? I promise we won’t be long.”

Joyce looked to El who shrugged, parting from the other kids. 

“Are you going to explain?” Mike asked.

“Like at all?” Dustin followed. “You still haven’t explained who that girl with the purple hair is.” 

“Oh, I thought I might’ve seen Kali,” Robin’s mother piped up. 

“Long story, guys! We’ll catch up later! Come on,” Steve sidetracked, leading El to his Ford where Nancy waited with Jonathan. 

During their walk to the Ford, Robin couldn’t help but watch the scene unfold at the Sedan. Or rather, not unfold as Kali stalled for time. She was still talking with Dr. Buckley, and Nine nodded along. Robin had no idea what was going on there, but she liked to think maybe they were talking about how efficient making pb&j’s would be if you didn’t have to use two knives and two spoons to make them. Of course, one couldn’t mix the pb and the j, and one also had to be careful not to get bread crumbs in the pb and/or j. Robin wagered that Kali used the standard two knife-two spoon set. Nine perhaps used the two knife set. Dr. Buckley was probably uneducated on the whole debate on whether bread crumbs truly threatened the efficacy of separate pb&j jars, and likely just used one knife, period. Disgusting.

A snap of Steve’s fingers led Robin away from the path toward the Sedan which she’d began to walk. She hustled toward the Ford, pulling the ribbons from her hair. That in hand, she opened the driverside door to start the car and the radio. 

“Sorry, it’s all I got,” Robin mumbled, handing a ribbon to El. She took it hesitantly, noticing the size. 

“I can’t believe you actually got onstage with ponytails like that,” Jonathan chuckled. 

“It wasn’t ridiculous or anything, just not your style,” Nancy added. Robin didn’t see how they were anyone’s style, really. 

“Well, they came in handy at least,” Robin said, tying hers around her eyes. She exhaled loudly. “Let’s hope this works.” 

Radio static issued forth from the barren station. Robin steadied her breathing. Fingertips brushed her shoulder to the left. Robin swatted them away. Nothing was going to break her focus. If Steve had something to tell her, he could wait until after she saw the future. 

The same hand shook her shoulder now. She loosed herself from the grip with a vigorous motion.

“Stop it, Steve!” Robin yelled, turning her head. 

But it wasn’t Steve at all. In fact,

It was her. But it wasn’t her. This “her” was wearing a grey flannel and jeans. She wore that yesterday. Robin looked to her right. Another “her” stood staring, wearing the same leather outfit she was wearing the day before then. Robin turned around completely. 

A whole slew of second selves walked before her, packed like sardines, all moving forward into the pitch black horizon like students in hall or like a flock of birds following bread crumbs regardless of the source. Robin pushed through them to the best of her ability, but they were packed too tight together, some just clones of themselves, and others with minimal changes like cuts and bruises or new clothes. Some of them looked to be actively phasing through each other to pass, others just ghosts and meandering at a slower pace. She didn’t know what she was moving toward, but they probably didn’t know either. They weren’t talking. They didn’t even look at her. They were too laser focused on the point ahead.

Robin turned around. If it was so hard to go forward then she’d just turn back. Sensing her spin, the two “hers” from before just glared. The moment she took the first step backward they moved to push her back in step with the others. It clicked, finally. Back to the future. That’s where they were 

Going without her. It was impossible to follow.

Frustrated, she stomped. Ripples parted from her heel. The many “hers” were leaving herself behind as they ventured forward. Robin looked around. Vast darkness as far as the eye could see. She couldn’t go forward. She couldn’t go backward. Perhaps left or right?

She chose left first, and it felt like a long, hard, and agonizingly painful journey, never knowing when to stop, never knowing how arduous it would be to turn back, or if she even could turn back at this point, or if she had long passed the point of no return. And then. Yet, it seemed. This was only a brief walk. She could see the others. Just over her shoulder. Sometimes not. It was hard to tell, the way they glitches into and away from each other. And the moment she got back on her walk, immediately she fell to the floor,

naturally.

As if she had just fallen off the beaten path. She stood, brushed herself off and walked onward. She reached a… floppy disk? She crouched and picked it up when

A hand shot out from the black not-water; and, it was pale with dark and pulsating veins, and with a grip so tight Robin was sure the circulation of blood from her wrist to her fingertips would cut off. Any moment. But she didn’t struggle, in fact she couldn’t help but just

Stare. At this, odd, odd thing. For a moment, it felt like this was her chain to reality, pulling her away from whatever was on that disk and when it finally took her down with it into the deep darkness of the rippling waves from whence it came she allowed herself to finally simply just

succumb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *slaps the roof off this fic* this baby can fit so many ~~stolen~~ borrowed life is strange elements in it (which i honestly didn't realize until like, last night)
> 
> i mean, obviously there's a market for time lesbians and their dyed-hair gfs if youre still here


	9. brain damage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~classified~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i need to get out of my canon compliance rut so bad, like that's the reason i never continued my pursuit of lemon demon reddie fics lmao i could not get my metaphorical ostrich head out of the metaphorical hole of canon compliance in order to break away from the clown the killer fucking clown
> 
> so im hoping to write a stoncy farm au after this :3 hopefully beta read bc i havent had a beta reader since ff.net. (they had the BEST beta system ever and i will forever miss it. i always had a beta there but i've never had a beta here)
> 
> sorry for the ramble tho. that had nothing to do w this chapter lol. anyway pls take this decidedly not a stoncy farm au chapter

Robin inhaled. She ripped the ribbon from her eyes. She looked around with wide eyes. El to her right, Steve crouching to the left. Fuck. She was back to the real world. Thank fuck. She exhaled.

God. 

She let herself slip down in the driver’s seat, staring up at the dotted cigarette burns of the roof. She steadied her breathing, counting each one. Once Steve had burned two separate holes, he made a smiley face out of it on every subsequent burn. There were ten that made up the picture in all. Robin squinted. She was getting really tired of that number popping up all over the place. If the universe wanted to tell her something, it would be just be the cherry on top of every-fucking-thing else. So it might as well have. 

“Hey,” El mumbled next to her. She’d unwrapped the ribbon from around her eyes. “Did it work?”

Robin elicited a small but sharp noise in response that would’ve sounded unnatural to anyone who hadn’t just experienced the absolute mind fuckery she just had. “No,” she verbalized. “I just went into my mindspace and... it was a nightmare, to say the least.”

“Oh,” she fretted, avoiding Robin’s eyes. 

“Hey,” Robin soothed, placing a hand on El’s shoulder. “It’s fine, doc. It’s not your fault. You did all you could.”

Steve ducked in through the driver’s window. “So no dice?”

“It was always a gamble. But yeah, no dice,” Robin confirmed. “Sorry your idea didn’t work.”

Steve shrugged. “I’m used to it. Jon and Nance usually have me covered there.” He knocked on his temple. “I mean, honestly, no one’s ever home.”

“What do we do now?” Nancy asked over Steve’s shoulder. 

He looked back at her. “Wait, you guys weren’t formulating a back-up plan? She was in there for like three minutes!”

“‘ _Three minutes?_ ’” Robin exclaimed. “Felt like three seconds!” Robin quickly looked down. She clutched her stomach. No, maybe three days. Three hours? Three... hm. 

“Maybe instead of sitting here and talking, we should actually do something?” Steve suggested, opening the car door. 

What was there to do? It all seemed so hopeless. Robin felt she could trust Kali and Nine to take care of themselves. They probably had more of a handle on it than she did. It was probably for the best to go with Kali’s back-up plan and leave all the fighting and escaping to the experienced ones.

“All we can do now is take El somewhere safe,” Robin announced. 

💾

Grass. It was a good makeshift bed. Robin didn’t have a hammock, and she wasn’t intent on staying inside, so the grass did well to make her not upset that she didn’t have a hammock. Not that she wasn’t upset about having a hammock. The grass just didn’t do anything itself to exacerbate this issue any further. 

In fact, it was rather nice, and worked well to soothe it ever so slightly. Sometimes, she’d just pluck handfuls and throw them into the air. Just because. Just because it didn’t mean anything. Nothing would be affected by her throwing grass in the air. There was no way her future could change because some strands of grass were no longer attached to the ground. And there was a certain solace in that. She liked it. 

She liked the feeling of the grass on the one leg that she let touch it, while the other bent upward at an angle. She liked the sun on her face without any tree’s shadow. She liked the outdoorsy smell of it, like it was doing photosynthesis and producing oxygen just for her. As if oxygen was a tangible thing that had a smell. A clear smell. A _clearing_ smell.

She made a groove in the grass from laying so long. It fit the shape of her perfectly. She didn’t feel like moving. She just wanted to watch the fluffy white clouds that may or may not look like ducks roll by. Today, there wasn’t much cloud cover. If she were to get sunburnt, then that was just a risk she was going to have to take. It was worth the peace. The quiet.

Especially the quiet. Only the gentle thrum of the occasional beetle nearby or the humble chirps of a red-breasted bird hung in the air. She didn’t like to hold her head up, but faint scratching at bark announced the occasional visit of a squirrel to the weeping willow. It was funny to watch. Squirrels were always in such a hurry to get nowhere fast. They never really sat down to appreciate all that nature had to offer in the present. 

Robin wished she had Jonathan’s knack for photography. Moreso, she wished she had his talent for picking out the right scene. If she had a camera, she’d have taken pictures of every moment. She couldn’t miss a beat. She wanted to keep it all. Everything mattered. Everything was beautiful, if you found the right angle. 

Maybe painting would be easier. It would feel less strenuous. She could take her time. Develop the scene. Really focus on the important parts. A little phthalo blue to start with. Mix it with white. Swirl that white around, make it stick out for the clouds. In the direction of the sun, maybe dot those clouds with more white, show the brilliance of the sun. And that’s all that would get done. The space below was her oyster. Who knew how time would corrupt that painting. And perhaps she would have to make more times of day to capture the other, darker, but still just as important moments. 

Robin closed her eyes. Her sleep had gotten better since opening night of her play. She hadn’t had any mind-splitting nightmares. Actually, she hadn’t dreamt at all. It felt like every day a smooth transition had just happened between the night and the morning. Days hadn’t really felt like much beyond laying in the grass and watching the clouds bumble about the skyline. She couldn’t really tell the days apart anymore. School seemed like a distant memory when she got home. Being inside her house didn’t feel like anything either. She hadn’t seen Steve, or Jonathan and Nancy, who seemed inseparable from Steve now, or even Dustin. Or anyone. And, if she had, surely she 

would’ve remembered?

A struggling carburetor rumbled in the distance. Robin hadn’t paid much attention to the cars. So unnatural. This one, though. It felt permanent. It wasn’t just content to drive by. She rose up with fists anchoring her to the grass as she watched the old cream-colored Sedan pull into the driveway. Her stomach churned emptily. That is to say, she couldn’t quite feel it. But she somehow knew the feeling like the back of her hand.

She swallowed with anticipation and felt every one of her muscles clench at once as if clamoring for her to get up and run. But no, this was the way things had to go. She had to wait. There was no point in running from him anymore. Didn’t mean she was going to run into his arms, though.

He ducked out of the car, tucking the keys into pants. He had a big smile as he leaned on the car door. Like nothing had ever happened. Like they were normal. Like any of this was even remotely Normal.

He tipped his bowler hat in greeting. “It’s been a while, huh?”

Robin nodded silently.

“Well, now that the dust has settled, I’d like to take you out to Benny’s. I used to go there with your mom all the time. You know what? I think it’s time we make it a family tradition,” he said, cheerily. 

“He’s dead,” Robin said bluntly.

“What?”

“I said, he’s dead. It was a cold case.” 

But Robin knew what happened. El told Mike what she believed had happened. Then Mike told Nancy. Nancy told Steve. And naturally, Steve told her. It was the lab cronies. They murdered him. Just for taking pity on a little girl. He was as dead as a doornail.

He gave an inconvenienced sigh. “I didn’t know. I’ve been keeping to myself.” He shrugged, then adjusted his glasses. “Mostly.”

“Have you talked to mom?” 

“No. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Robin turned her head to the willow. It swayed gently in the small bit of wind that had begun to pick up.

“And besides,” he continued, “she already knows I’m here anyway. Just like you knew I was coming up. Right?”

Robin’s lips formed a line. She wasn’t sure what emotion she was supposed to muster here. 

“Anyway, I think I know a place you would like. It’s a cute little café on the edge of town across from the arcade,” he said, rubbing his nose slightly. “Maybe we can get away from all this pollen,” he laughed forcibly. 

Robin got to her feet. She shoved her hands in her jeans pockets. She watched the gentle sway of the willow leaves. Maybe it would be nice to get away. If only for a moment.

  
💾

Hawkins Express-O Café was quiet. Unusually so. Typically there was the odd couple here and there on a Saturday, but the only occupants were herself, her father, and the workers. Outdoors, the quiet was fine. There wasn’t much to focus on. It meant things were okay. Things were peaceful. Here, indoors, quiet became unsettling. Where was the whir, the conversation, the business? 

In their booth seat, Robin curled in on herself, holding her arms as she looked out of the window. The speckling of the window made it such that what little hustle and bustle Hawkins had was blurred to the point of no recognition. It was starting to give her a headache, but it wasn’t like she recognized the man sitting across from her either. 

Two black coffees, a couple danishes, and a plate of three toaster waffles were set on the table, along with some creamer and syrup containers. The waitress dashed off in a hurry, despite having no one else to serve. Robin didn’t blame her. The table looked like pure misery. 

If not for the richness of the coffee nearly drowning out the sickly sweet smell of the strawberry-filled pastries, Robin was sure she would’ve had to excuse herself. Her brain just couldn’t make it all fit. None of it fit.

How could this man stand himself after everything he’d involved himself with? How could he fake his death, not once, but twice? How could he come back, thinking everything was cool, that he could just close the ravine he mined out so many years ago. Every second, it felt like he was taking a pickaxe to her. She wasn’t sure how much she had left to give.

He poured some creamer into his coffee, used a stirrer, took a sip, and then set the cup down. “I... know this has been hard,” he said finally.

Understatement of the year. 

“But you have to understand the predicament that I’m in. I can’t speak about much, even now.” He lowered his voice, “You never know who’s listening. Between you and me, it’s best to assume anywhere and everywhere in Hawkins is bugged.” 

“Here’s the thing: I don’t care. Now, where did you take them?” Robin demanded, not accounting for the voice crack.

“That’s classified information,” he said, like an automaton. 

Robin shook her head, lower lip threatening to wobble. “Not to me. Not when it’s Kali.”

“Eight, you mean.”

“I mean Kali,” Robin said firmly.

He sipped at his coffee. He took a bite of a danish and wiped his mouth with his thumb. “Listen, Robin, I don’t expect you to understand.”

“No, I don’t understand. So explain it to me.”

“I can’t,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “There are rules. You’re going to have to learn that some people you just have to leave behind in pursuit of the stranger things in life.”

“What, like acid tripping arcade cabinets?” Robin retorted.

“Yes, exactly like that. Aren’t you grateful? Isn’t it nice to see the future? To be assured that everything will be alright?”

“No. I feel like a puppet. I’ve always been a puppet. But I liked thinking that I had free will. That I could make mistakes. I guess it just felt reassuring,” Robin sighed.

“Why? I can’t fathom it,” he said before finishing off the first danish.

Robin crossed her arms, turning her gaze back to the window. “Because... then, it felt like I could measure myself. Learn from things. Strive to be better.”

“You can still do that.”

“But it’s not my choice anymore. It’s what the universe decides for me.”

“And you’ve explored all your options?”

“I can’t change the future.”

Her father hummed. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

“What?” Robin eked out.

He raised a brow.

“Is that what this was about?” Robin flared up. “You just wanted a report on me?” 

“The conversation came naturally. I had to take advantage—“

“That’s not okay!” Robin exclaimed. 

“Please, don’t make a scene,” he said, fanning his hands in a downward motion. He exhaled frustratedly. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I’ll try to be better.”

He wouldn’t, but that was beside the point. She had no reason to pursue it further. It wouldn’t change anything. So, she stayed silent, let him talk about the history of danishes, and finished her meal.

She poured syrup in her coffee and creamer on her waffles. Just to feel something. Anything.

  
💾

  
After getting back into the car, they sat in silence for some time, just staring out of the windshield. What could they say? What could he say after an eighteen year absence that had nothing to do with some weird fact about some weird thing? How could he begin to get to know her? Robin didn’t want to give him the slightest inch in this regard. Fool her once, shame on him. Fool her twice, well... she wasn’t going to get fooled again. 

“So what do you like to listen to?” he asked.

Robin shrugged. “You could turn it to 98.9.”

“Ok.”

Static issued forth from the station. He sat back, taken a little by surprise. He looked to her to make sure this was what she wanted. She raised a brow in response.

“You listen to this?” he asked with an awkward chuckle stapled on at the end.

“Yeah,” Robin said nonchalantly. It didn’t feel like a lie, but she didn’t remember doing this at all. Still, static was better than having to explain her actual taste in music.

He pressed his lips together and looked forward through the windshield. He tapped on the steering wheel discordantly. “Well, it’ll keep you awake on a long drive, I’ll give you that.” 

With the static still playing noisily, he managed to make his eyes crinkle with a forced smile. If he didn’t have the mole next to his eye, Robin would’ve thought he was just the crash test dummy that died in his stead, coming back to haunt her. 

“Me personally, I don’t really listen to music,” he offered. “I don’t exactly have the time to. I’m constantly recording notes for Dr. Brenner, you know. I’ve actually got to get back tomorrow. I can’t tell you where, of course. It’s—“

“Classified,” Robin finished for him.

He pursed his lips, nodding. He gave a long sigh. “Yeah.”

“Ok.”

The drive back felt longer than the drive there. He hadn’t spoken much, letting the static settle in. By the time they’d driven past the Bergamot turnoff, the static felt as natural as the fact that Robin did indeed have a skeletal structure beneath her skin complete with clavicles and everything. 

If she could’ve done, she would’ve popped her head off and rolled it out of the window like a bowling ball, hopefully into an open sewer grate, just so she didn’t have to sustain the torment of the awkward silence. Things were starting to get pretty swimmy anyway. She wasn’t sure if it was the never-ending static or the ever present feeling that the cart in the ravine they found themselves in was going to derail very soon and very horribly. 

There was nothing even remotely intimidating about the man. Robin found herself feeling sorry for him at times. He had a rounded face and ruddy cheeks. Perfectly circular glasses and mint green eyes to go behind them. He wasn’t exactly the smallest man in the world, but he wasn’t tall. Very stout, then. And, he didn’t have the voice to pose a threat. 

But his track record led her to the crossroads. He was behind Nine and Cain. He was behind the arcade cabinets. He was behind the disappearance of two people who, despite her pedigree, accepted her, and, _goddamnit_ fell. in. love. with her. who thought she was unlovable for so long. because of 

Him.

She was so scared of Kali leaving. That she’d never come back to her. The future assured her so well that she wouldn’t ever be gone. Not really. But now... now she wasn’t so sure. Had she changed something? Without knowing it? That was the trouble. 

Nothing felt right about this. It wasn’t normal in the slightest. Nothing had felt right for a 

Month, right? That’s how long it had been? A month? No

No it hadn’t. It’s only been a week. Yeah.

A week.

Or no, maybe a day? Had it only been

Robin pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a migraine coming on. She rubbed her nose with the back of her wrist and came away with blood.  
She’d never had a nosebleed before. 

“Are you okay?” her father asked, but she gave no response.

No, none of this was right. She should’ve been able to remember something, anything from school. Not one new thing came to mind. She should’ve seen Steve. He would’ve called her. He would’ve reached out. He wouldn’t just disappear without a trace. He wouldn’t just leave her he wouldn’t just leave her he wouldn’t 

“Robin, are you okay?” 

She snapped her head up. They were coming up on the willow tree to the left. Up to her house. 213 Plutarch Ave. was it even real?

only one way to find

out, she figured.

Taking hold of the steering wheel, she thrust it leftward

  
and found herself looking forward into a black horizon. Below her, she saw her pale hands contrasted against the same black rippling floor she’d grown accustomed to when Eleven guided her into the temporal landscape.

The floppy disk laid next to her. Hot to the touch. It was burnt out, she decided. She couldn’t pick it up again. 

Well, that was the left path. Her other selves still packed together, heading into the future like hurried high school students trying to get to their next class. The two other hers at the back stared holes into her, daring her to come near them. 

Robin began to run on the right path, and found it more like. running underwater. As if in a dream. Getting absolutely

nowhere. But nowhere was better than where she was. 

No matter how long she walked though, she couldn’t find any semblance of a tangible object for which to suck her into the murky depths of whatever temporal substance laid below. She walked for seconds. Minutes. Days. Hours Weeks Milliseconds Centiseconds. picoseconds.

And there was no sign that she’d even moved an inch from where she was other than the herd of herselves being over her left shoulder instead of her right. 

But there had to be something on the other side of this river. She had to change this future. It wasn’t right. It didn’t feel natural. 

  
Frustrated, she

ripped the ribbon from her eyes. She looked around to see that, well, nothing changed. El to her right, Steve crouching to the left. Oh fuck. She was back where she started again.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Steve observed.

“I...” Robin muttered. She couldn’t get much else out. She remembered everything that had happened exactly a month ago as if it had been just yesterday. But how was that possible?

Robin watched as El removed her ribbon again. Listened as she apologized again. Told El it was okay again. Watched as Steve fumbled for a plan again. Opened the door again. 

“Where are you going?” Steve asked, his conversation with Nancy being interrupted this time.

Robin combed a hand through her hair. “I gotta talk to Kali. Take El and get her out of here.”

As she approached the Sedan, Robin found that Kali and Dr. Buckley were not, as she once thought, talking about the most efficient way to make a pb&j. Rather, they were talking about some hostage situation in the news that Robin had no idea about, nor did she have any interest in. By the looks of Nine, leaning against the car with his arms crossed, he didn’t seem to take any interest either.

“So what if it was all just a plot? Should they have been asked to blink once for yes and twice for no?” Kali asked Dr. Buckley.

“Probably,” Nine loudly interjected.

“I don’t know how you had any time to read into that affair,” Dr. Buckley muttered. 

“Couldn’t read anything but the Bible or the paper in that church, y’know. Given the choices, we usually went with the paper,” Nine said with a semi-roll of his eyes.

Kali was about to agree, but noticed Robin’s approach and stiffened, fearful of Dr. Buckley’s reaction to their being together. Robin forewent this fear and enveloped her in a hug. Craning her neck, she rested her cheek against Kali’s. The lack of comfort was made up for by the longing she’d felt in the other timeline, unsure of whether she’d ever see her again. But she was here now. She would make things right. 

Having more sense of time, Kali struggled away from Robin when the hug went on for much too long. She looked up with concern.

“Did you do it?” Kali whispered.

Robin nodded. But she still didn’t know what exactly to do, given the new information. Everything was just a shot in the dark. But, if it didn’t go right, she could always take a leap of faith back into the black and try, try again.

“Hey...” Robin swallowed. “... dad. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go with you. That way Kali and I can say goodbye. One last time.”

Dr. Buckley furrowed his brow. He sighed. “It seems you’ve established a relationship in my absence.” He pushed his glasses up. “I suppose it would be rather unkind of me to split the two of you without the chance for a goodbye.”

“Yeah, exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Robin said, having nodded along to his every word.

Nine leaned forward. “Are you seriously saying goodbye? You don’t have a plan?” 

Ducking slightly out of Dr. Buckley’s sight, Robin quickly put a finger up to her lips and then shoved her hands in her pockets. Dr. Buckley forcibly removed her left hand and placed his gun in it. It was lighter than Samson’s, but newer, and felt strangely official. 

He took her aside. “You know how to use it, right? If they step out of line?”

Robin nearly lost her lunch. She tried hard to breathe evenly. Of course she knew how to use it. But, of course, she didn’t learn it from him.

  
💾

“So are you happy now? You’ve got your quarry,” Kali grumbled from the backseat. Robin rubbed her shoulder in an attempt to soothe her.

“Actually, Eleven is still around somewhere. We’ve got our top agents on that case. Now that her caretaker is allegedly dead, she’s free game to take back,” Dr. Buckley replied. “Speaking of our top agents, I saw their son—Steve, right?—he was talking to you,” he said, looking at Robin. “Do you know each other well?”

Kali glared at Robin, who shrugged. How was she supposed to know Steve’s parents worked for the government? She was pretty much content to just assume they were astronauts like he always said.

“Well, anyway, I think it’d be nice if you two were to date. I think I’d trust him enough. Doesn’t seem like the heartbreaker type,” Dr. Buckley commented.

Robin sank in her seat. So not only did she have to explain her taste in music to him, but also her taste in men? Which was to say, she had no taste in that regard. 

An awkward silence passed through the car. Cain sat beside Robin, stoic as ever. He watched the passing scenery outside the window with an intense interest. From what she could see of him, Nine was simply gone. Just pale and haunted. Kali held onto Robin’s hand with a grip that Robin would’ve thought unimaginably taut if she wasn’t holding on with the same ferocity.

Cain leaned back and glared at Kali. She glared at him as well. Robin sank further, not wanting to be a part of this. He flicked his eyes to the left. Kali considered the gesture for a moment. Then, she leaned against her window, as if looking out of it. Deftly, she slipped her fingers between the passenger seat and door, tugging on Nine’s jacket.

“So should we talk more about that hostage situation up in Dawking County? I just think it was interesting,” Nine mentioned, clearly watching the rearview mirror for some kind of confirmation from Kali. 

She blinked once.

Robin looked between the three mutants. So they definitely weren’t talking about pb&js or the hostage affair. Robin laid her head back against the middle seat, staring up at the ceiling. Maybe they didn’t need her at all. Maybe this was always inevitable. 

It wasn’t like she could ask Kali what had happened in the other timeline. Robin was the only one who knew there was another timeline in the first place. She couldn’t just fuck something up for no reason, either. How many chances would she get at this? It was all so unclear. 

Robin barely got a chance to react when a stag jumped out in the middle of the road, causing Nine to scream something awful that pierced Robin’s brain like a million needles. She could feel Cain duck with her, but somehow Kali kept her composure. She had to in order to keep the stag moving. 

Dr. Buckley lost a grip on his, as well as his grip on the wheel, sending everyone careening to the right as the car spiraled into a tree just off-road. Though the crash affected both Dr. Buckley and Cain, the damage was mostly on Dr. Buckley’s part, as the door had caved into him as if the car were trying to wrap around the tree at that point. Noticing Dr. Buckley’s new impediment, Cain bolted out of the door, with Nine following quickly. Dr. Buckley shot off a series of curses as he attempted to move from his position. He didn’t appear to be injured greatly—which Robin found herself breathing the guiltiest sigh of relief over—but there was no way he was getting out anytime soon.

Kali ducked out of the car, and hand still in Robin’s, took her along. She scampered around to the back of the tree. 

“Robin, I need you to promise me you won’t hate me,” Kali said under her breath.

“What? What for?” Robin asked, shaking her head in confusion.

Kali struggled to speak for a moment. “I... well, I wouldn’t be able to go through with this if you weren’t here. I can give you an illusion so you don’t have to watch. They’re gonna seal him in the... um, you called it the Upside Down, right?”

Robin widened her eyes in fury. They were just gonna take him? After it took so long to get him back? After she spent her whole life thinking he was dead? After going through this emotional rollercoaster to get the best outcome? Why did she have to give one for the other? It wasn’t 

fair, but that was life, she supposed.

“This isn’t easy for me, either,” Kali continued. “Nine and Cain are staying, too. I... won’t see him again for a long time if ever,” she murmured. “He’ll be gone, just like everyone else. All in the name of revenge.” She let out a breathless chuckle and wiped at her eyes. She swallowed hard. “But it’s for the best.”

“Kali, you don’t have to do this,” Robin begged, tears threatening the corners of her eyes as well. 

“He’s gonna come after El. You know I can’t let that happen.” Kali grabbed both of Robin’s hands and pressed a kiss to them. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

Robin stared at the tree, its trunk unmoved. Its leaves rustled with the fury of a thousand winds. Or maybe it was just her imagination.

“I don’t need an illusion,” Robin decided. “Just... just hold my hand, please.”

Kali nodded solemnly. 

Robin removed her hands briefly and stood beside Kali, watching the act unfold.

After what was likely a long talk between brothers, Cain returned to the car, brutishly opening the passenger door.

“Are you going to stand there, or are you going to help me?” Dr. Buckley yelled furiously, still trapped inside.

Cain reached a fiery hand toward Dr. Buckley, dragging him out of the car.

Robin took Kali’s hand again, giving it a tight squeeze as Cain and Nine propped Dr. Buckley up around their shoulders, leading him away, kicking with one side, and screaming like a maniac. Which, Robin wasn’t exactly opposed to calling him.

Naming herself after a god, and especially one of death, Kali had already set herself up not only to stand out, but to stand above the rest of the world like an absent god who cared not for those below her except for the one mortal she fell in love with and those mortals who deserved more than their fair share of retribution. One should be wary if Kali’s line of sight were to include them. They may know not what they did, but that didn’t give them any iota of forgiveness in Kali’s eyes.

Robin wasn’t even sure that she’d miss him. What was she supposed to miss, anyway? Some man who’d come into her life for a few seconds? Not even for her sake but for his pet projects. 

Still, he was her own flesh and blood. She didn’t like seeing him carried down the road. Down to his imprisonment. There lied a future of information, a future of the father-daughter interactions she’d always wanted, and perhaps even a future of normalcy, even if it wasn’t entirely 

Normal. But nothing ever would be. 

After the men had disappeared far into the woods, Kali settled her head in the crook of Robin’s neck. Robin desperately wished she could look in Kali’s eyes. But she didn’t want to know if this was the truth, or if they’d finally carried out what they meant to do at the quarry. She was satisfied with a non-answer. It gave her the slightest hope that maybe she’d see him again. 

But not anytime soon. And then again, maybe not ever.

  
💾

Waves crashed and thundered below with the tenacity of an ancient god disturbed from his rest. Dangling her legs over the cliffside, Robin wondered if the froth felt like blades or like clouds. There was only one way to find out, and Robin wasn’t particularly interested in that experiment. 

The sky yielded nothing but grey cloud cover. Nature pulled no punches when it came to how dreary the day was. Hawks circled in the sky, alerting any observer to the presence of a storm. That, or Robin was terrible at birdwatching and those were actually buzzards ready to swoop upon death’s leftovers.

Sometimes, the birds would shriek. They were far off but pronounced. Robin screamed in kind, like distant group therapy, letting all her stress out in one breath. It felt good to get it all out. As raw as it made her throat feel. As strange as it made her feel. Just a lonely sapphic. screaming in a quarry. with no one around to. 

hear her.

Robin closed her eyes and fell back against the dirt and stone. It wasn’t as comfortable as the grass, but it felt natural. She’d been coming here for so long. She remembered being told by government officials to ride home the night they found “Will” at the bottom of the quarry. Remembered. That face. That looked a lot. Like hers. 

Remembered his face just yards from hers now. Face down. On the sediment and stone. 

Didn’t matter now. She didn’t really want to be here. The bad vibes were too much to absorb now. But the future dictated that she lay here, staring up at the white ball of fire behind the slate gray sky above until 

she heard the crunch of rocks below the wheels of a car. She remained in her position, nearly unblinking until a car door opened and closed, and footsteps approached. 

Steve took a seat beside her and then laid on his back, staring up at the sky with her.

“You’re not real,” Robin said bluntly.

“Well hello, sunshine. Nice to see you too,” Steve chuckled.

“I mean it, Steve. You’re not real.” Robin fidgeted with her hands. “For now, anyway. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Dude, I haven’t seen you in a month. I gotta say that is not only the weirdest but also the worst greeting I’ve ever heard from someone I haven’t seen in a month. I once went a year without seeing Tommy H. and he had more to say to me than question my entire existence as you know—a ghost or a figment or whatever you think I am,” Steve prattled.

“Sorry,” Robin said emptily. “It’s just... I’ve been here a couple times already. I’ve been in my yard like nine times? I’ve been laying in bed with Kali about four, and I’ve laid there by myself around... five times. Yeah.”

“And... you lost me.”

“Sorry,” she apologized again, and still didn’t entirely mean it. “I’ve been resetting the timelines over and over. But no matter what I do—no matter what I change—I can’t get the outcome I want.”

“Okay. What do you want?”

Robin bit her lip. She sighed. “My dad? I guess. And Kali. But no matter what I do, I lose one or the other. I can’t have both. I can’t even have neither, which I would honestly be fine with at this point.”

“I very seriously doubt that,” Steve laughed.

Robin sat up. “I just don’t understand why I’ve got these powers if I can’t use them to get what I want?”

Steve followed her move. “Maybe that’s not what they’re for.”

“Well what the fuck are they for if not for changing the future?” she asked, throwing a pebble down into the pit of the quarry.

Steve raised a brow at the action. “Maybe you’ve just gotta choose. Weigh the pros and cons.”

Robin pushed her hair up. “I’ve never really had the time to do that. When my nose starts bleeding, I start to get a migraine, and I’m getting the feeling that it’s not good to stay at that point. So, I find some way to shock myself back to the point of the divergence.” 

“Let me help. What is it about Kali that you would want to choose her? I mean, other than the fact that she actually likes you back and is somehow also like, way out of your league.” 

“Fuck off,” Robin chuckled breathlessly.

“I’m serious. This badass has somehow chosen you as her ride or die even though you’re just, like, a dork.”

“Steve!” Robin barked.

“Anyway,” Steve mumbled. “What about your dad?”

“I just miss him, I guess. I never got to spend any time with him. I never understood anything about him. I just wanted to know what he was like. What it could’ve been like. But I can’t enjoy that without Kali’s disappearance hanging over my head.”

“Maybe you’re not supposed to,” Steve suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got the power to see the future. Shouldn’t you be... I dunno... letting go of the past?”

Robin gaped at him. Her brows tilted upward. “Are you asking me to get over my dad’s death?”

“You did it once.” 

“But I had to,” she cracked. “Now I actually get a choice and I can’t— Steve, I can't just—“ She cut herself off as the tears that had threatened to slip out so long ago finally made their appearance.

Steve folded his hands and stared out across the landscape. Hawkins sort of wrapped around the beach area. If one really focused, they could see a pretty ancient silo beyond the tree line from before the area was urbanized.

Robin sighed and leaned against him, resting her cheek on his shoulder. He stretched his arm behind her and pulled her closer by the hip. He made her feel so weak, but never in a bad way. She was allowed to feel weak around him. Allowed to be vulnerable. Allowed to expose herself. 

Allowed to cry on his shoulder. 

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, heaving weighted breaths between forceful sobs. He held on to her tightly.

“This should be Kali’s job,” Steve complained.

“I can’t just— you cannot expect me to cry in front of— how can I cry in front of her? Kali’s too cool to have me crying on her shoulder,” Robin spluttered.

“Yeah, you’re right. You’re lucky I’ve got so much cool to spend on you dorking it up out here,” Steve quipped. 

Robin separated from him and wiped at her eyes. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t think I would just... cry like that. I’ve been holding it in for a while, I guess.”

“Your nose is bleeding!” Steve noticed, standing up with a bit of panic. 

He pulled Robin to her feet. She looked over her shoulder at the edge. He barely had a grip on her, but she was hanging onto him for dear life.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to go yet!” Robin shouted at him. “Don’t let go!”

Steve shook his head and flashed a reassuring smile. “You’ll be fine! You’ll know what to choose! You’re the smartest person I know!” 

“But what if it’s a bad choice?”

“Robin, I just called you the smartest person in the world. Come on. Nancy would kill me if she heard me say that about anyone but her,” Steve chuckled nervously as if Nancy would somehow know.

“Steve...” Robin murmured in trepidation, still unsure. 

“No matter what you choose, I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon, okay?” 

  
And with that

  
he pushed her

  
out of the grey

  
and into the black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god look at me trying to be a didactic sap lmao
> 
> im so sorry yall probably came for the robali and just got a fistful of stobin friendship haha i promise next chapter will just be pure fluff.


	10. eclipse.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kali ditches Hawkins. Robin plays the trumpet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey watch this power move
> 
> *makes a playlist for this fic and puts Dreams of an Absolution by LB (Remix Factory) on it*  
> sorry i just got back on my bullshit.
> 
> (also there is uh. mild sexual content at the very end? nothing mentioned below the neck but just warning you jic. i mean,, this is rated m so ,, its hopefull y not out of the blue. (oh and warning for bad puns too. REALLY BAD PUNS.))

Summer had a funny way of announcing its presence. First, it’d come in the temperature. Then, it’d come in the endless days of storms. And finally, there’d be that creeping feeling that the days were getting longer and longer until it seemed that it was actually light out at ten in the fucking evening. And by that point, what did words like evening even mean? 

If she wanted to leave in the cover of nightfall, Robin had to wait an a couple more hours than she would’ve liked to. She was getting to be an old woman at the age of eighteen, damnit. Being in bed by eleven was all she ever yearned for. 

She checked her digital clock. The neon red displayed “12:43.” Just seventeen minutes and Kali would arrive. 

The sun had set and was now replaced by the full moon. Robin always did like the moon better. She was just classier. 

Robin looked in the mirror. She certainly wasn’t classy at all tonight. Not that one had to be classy when running away. She donned ripped jeans, combat boots, and a flannel over her new Hawkins Theater Department shirt. She wasn’t quite sure where the other one went. 

She gave herself the final once over. Messy bun, no makeup, choker, and probably way too many bracelets that Kali had nabbed at the mall for her. Yeah. This would be fine.

  
💾

  
About seventeen minutes later, Kali knocked on her window. Robin draped a couple blankets on herself and grabbed her trumpet case and Samson’s beat-up old suitcase that she was “borrowing.” The girls greeted each other with a brief kiss and off they went to their good old getaway van.

The backyard had grown up a lot in weeds and wildflowers since Robin had last been in it. But last time she was in it, she was playing with dolls with Heather Holloway and trying to pretend that that actually interested her in any way. She would’ve much rather had Heather as an audience to her trumpet, unencumbered in the outdoors to play as loudly as she liked. But no, she had to play stupid Barbie getting together with even stupider Ken. 

Even then, though, she didn’t like seeing the knothole in the fence where they used to sit the dolls now covered with ragweed and nettle.

By the time she was done pondering over childhood occurrences, Kali had made it around the house. Robin followed her path around the house and joined her in the van.

“So,” Robin mumbled, firmly seated in the leather she’d be riding in for at least the next month. Or whenever summer decided to run its course. 

“So,” Kali replied in kind.

“We’re gonna be gone for awhile, huh?” 

Kali nodded. “I’ll get you back before college, nerd, don’t worry. But if we could find at least one mutant, I think I’ll be satisfied.”

Robin smiled and shook her head. “I still can’t believe you’ve turned your life mission around.”

“Better to find people alive than dead, right?” Kali asked as she started the car, giving a bit of a grunt to her rhetorical question. 

Robin crossed her arms and leaned back. “Well, you know you’ll have to change your name now that you’re not out for revenge anymore.”

Kali scoffed. “No way. Kali’s cool as fuck. She’s blue and has like six arms.” 

“Ok, that’s fair.” 

“Why don’t you change _your_ name?” Kali retorted. 

“I guess I never thought about it,” she said, but really, she had no reason to think about it. The origin of the name wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the end of the world. “Hm. I don’t know what I would change it to.” 

“A goddess?”

 _Like Athena or Freya?_ Robin laughed. “I’m not that cool.”

Kali gave her a look.

“It’s true,” Robin doubled down. “Anyway, we should probably head out before the ‘rents catch on. How did Joyce react to you pulling out of the driveway at midnight?”

“She doesn’t know. I only told El. Honestly, I kind of missed the road. I’m living in the van either way, but I’d choose this over being stationary any day.”

And Robin could clearly see her face light up when she revved the engine to back out. With how quickly she snapped it all into gear, Robin could sense the familiarity she’d built up with this van. It was like a vestigial limb. Not necessary, but Kali wouldn’t be Kali without her van. Most people would christen their cars, but Kali didn’t need to. This was her van. This was, for lack of a better term, her home. 

Robin felt lucky just to have a chance to share this space for the month. Every inch of it—from the little scented pine air freshener to the hanging dice to the borrowed and never returned Rolling Stones shirt laying in the back of the van to the picture of her old gang sitting in the glove box—was Kali. 

They finally hit the road after creeping out of Plutarch Avenue. The start of the engine was too suspicious to follow up with hightailing it out of there. Once she got the van on the main Hawkins road, Kali felt confident enough to lean back and let the pedal sink as far as the limit would allow. 

It wasn’t very often that they’d gone for rides since last year. Kali would usually show up and they’d walk to wherever they were going in Hawkins. It was a small town, and they wanted to eke out as much time as they possibly could on their dates. If Kali got Robin home by eleven, well, could her parents blame her? They were walking, after all. Might’ve had to stop to pet a dog. Or two.

Plus, it was just easier to hold hands while walking compared to driving. Robin was a firm believer in having two hands on the wheel. Though, when the window was down, and Kali hung her arm on the side of it, well, it did look kind of sexy. And who was Robin to diminish such confidence? 

The night felt darker than usual as they drove through the sleeping town. She wondered what Hawkins dreamt about. 

Did Hawkins dream of one day being a normal town? Of one day speaking up about what went on beneath the sheet of the black sky? Of speaking out against the intolerance that forced some into hiding into the forts they had to build up as kids, only to be fortified as adults? Or maybe Hawkins dreamt of one day escaping itself.

A red light hung above them. Robin hummed a showtune quietly.

“What if I didn’t go to college?” 

Kali squinted at Robin. She took the time the red light allowed her to search Robin’s face for some piece that would reveal it was a joke. When she found none, she settled for a question of clarification in “What?”

“I’m serious. What if we just lived on the road together?” Robin pursued. 

The light turned green. Kali waited a moment before moving forward again. 

“You can’t just ditch Hawkins,” she said.

“Why not? What’s in Hawkins?”

“Steve? The _’rents?_ ” Kali mocked Robin’s accent.

“Never said we wouldn’t come back to visit,” Robin said innocently.

“Robin, you can’t just throw your life away.”

“For you? I could.”

“You still don’t know everything about me.”

“Sure I do. For example, your favorite flavor of danish is apple.”

Kali thought for a moment. “I’ve never even had a danish.”

“But it’s probably true.”

“Maybe in the future.”

“Yeah.” She tried one and suddenly declared that no other kind would ever surpass it. Robin didn’t blame her. They did smack pretty hard. 

These and other vignettes of time came and went in her mind. Her mind was like a castle filled with glass-stained windows which were constantly being changed in and out. Some would come back. Others she’d never see again. She liked the one with the rescue pit bull, even if it was hard to keep it contained in the backseat. 

She still wasn’t sure if she had the ability to change anything. Everything remained the same even after she’d made her choice, and she hadn’t revisited the process since. There was a certain emptiness in knowing she couldn’t save everyone. She didn’t like to dwell on it.

Kali kept her eyes forward. Somehow though, Robin always felt the attention on her despite realistically having to share it with the road. It was the way they breathed in sync. The way that sometimes at a harsh stop, Kali threw her arm out in front of Robin. And the way that even in silence there was conversation between facial expressions. 

“You ever think about cutting your hair?” Robin asked suddenly.

“Excuse me!” Kali screeched, nearly pumping the brakes.

“Well, I was just thinking—“

“Robin, I swear to god, if you let me cut my hair in the future, I’m crashing this car right now!” Kali resolved. She took her eyes off the road for a second to give a chuckling Robin a pseudo-threatening glare. “You know I’m serious.”

“I know,” Robin choked out between laughs. “I know, I was just joking.”

Kali humphed. “Better be.”

She settled back into her driving groove, placing her left arm on the rolled down window. Robin leaned back in her seat, watching, amused, as Kali came down from her mountain of outrage. 

“Robin, you better be joking,” Kali said again, quieter.

Robin laughed, this time echoed slightly by Kali herself. She wiped a tear from her eye. “I promise! My god, calm down, you topiary.”

  
💾

  
By four in the morning, they found themselves at a rest stop. After darting inside, they came back out with a map and the promise of coffee in the morning by a clerk who was much too enthusiastic about their night shift. 

Robin didn’t understand how anyone could be a night person. Kali was, to an extent. She didn’t like being up past three in the morning, but she wasn’t complaining. Plus, she had a map to sort out now. 

Where Robin was very intent on going to bed in the back of the van, Kali determined the rest of her night would be spent figuring out the best route to California, as that was their only lead on a mutant. Ten was his name. The way Kali described him, he struck her as being extremely familiar. But Robin brushed it off as quickly as it came. No sense in occupying her brain with much else besides sleep. 

  
When she awoke, she found Kali sleeping on the floor, apparently unbothered. Robin made a silent vow to demand she take the floor next. 

She laid on her back, looking up at the roof. She couldn’t imagine how many memories were in this backseat alone. Kali had four to her gang not including herself. She knew she missed them. And having El back here as well? It sounded like a nice time, as short-lived as it may have been. 

How many times did they all wake up in this van? What was it like, Robin wondered, to open your eyes and be surrounded by the people you loved? 

Her eyes fell down upon Kali. Robin supposed she knew. 

  
_“Nine!”_ Kali screamed, suddenly bolting upright.

Robin jumped to the moon, jolted out of her daydreams. She immediately moved to put a hand on Kali’s shoulder. “Kal’, he’s not here.”

“Then where—“ She cut herself off with a pained cry, then cringed with her eyes firmly closed as if she’d just watched someone break a leg. 

“I’m sorry,” Robin said, unsure why. Not like she could do anything about it. She tried. God, she tried.

“It’s fine. I guess I’m just not used to it, even after a month. I... always have someone. Guess I’m not used to the current rotation.” Kali caught herself. “Wait— I mean, no offense, it’s just—“

“I know,” Robin said, and she understood perfectly. “At least you haven’t called me Dottie or anything.” _Yet_.

“Right.” Kali nodded, bringing her knees up to her chest. She stared off into space. “Right.”

  
💾

“You can’t do that in public.”

“Fucking hell, I can’t.” Robin put her trumpet down for a second. She squinted at Kali. “That swear came from you, y’know.”

“And I’m so unbelievably proud babe, but please put the trumpet down,” Kali requested from behind her map.

“Okay, but you’re gonna love this one. I learned it from listening to Samson’s Magical Mystery Tour record over and over again last summer.”

“What makes you think I like The Beatles?” Kali asked, throwing the map down with a hurt expression. 

“You don’t?” Robin wheezed into a laugh. “I thought it was illegal to have a British accent and not like The Beatles.”

“And I thought it was illegal to have a country accent and not like Dolly Parton,” Kali said, bringing the shield of her map back over her face. 

Robin gaped. “I so like Dolly Parton. Who told you I didn’t like Dolly Parton? Was it Steve because we were just drunk that one time and all I said was that Jolene was way overrated and like honestly, I think Jolene sounds hotter than whatever guy Dolly was fuckin’ around with because—“  
  
“Robin.”

“Kali.”

“I was joking.”

“I’m not, though.” Robin looked down and rubbed her neck. “Also, I _don’t_ have a country accent.”

“Yes you do.”

Robin laid her head back against the window. She sighed. She kind of wanted to move her legs, but it felt nice to have them so tangled in Kali’s. Pulling them apart would just leave an empty void. 

“Anyway listen to this.” 

Robin pressed her lips against the trumpet’s mouthpiece and blew out some discordant notes to start as she refamiliarized herself with the instrument. Kali let the top of the map fall as she observed Robin’s effort with disapproval as sour as the notes coming out of the bell.

Then came the first G note and the rest of _La Marseillaise_ followed. She allowed herself a small smile and breath as Kali lowered the map to watch her fingers work out the tune. Robin stopped to hum the tune of _All You Need Is Love_. She played some discordant notes in what she thought was the instrumental between the words of the chorus. She didn’t get any closer no matter how hard she tried. Kali clapped at the end anyway.

“Encore?” Robin asked giddily.

Kali flipped the map back up. “No.”

  
💾

  
The dreary town of Curiquel sat along the northern border between Indiana and Chicago. There wasn’t much to say about it. It had all the chain stores and restaurants that Hawkins did, with the same general flavor of mom and pop shops. They didn’t seem famous for anything, and the town entrance sign just had a generic picture of a bear on it. 

So they were famous for their bears. Robin asked Kali why they were there in that case. She got a slight chuckle out of it. 

It had been approximately an hour since their last stop and even longer since they’d last ate. There was a diner on the main road through Curiquel, aptly named the Main Road Diner. It wasn’t the only eatery on the main road, but Robin supposed the hubris and/or lack of foresight was quaint enough.

Walking in felt like entering a black hole. There were no lights aside from the neon orange headers and overhead bar lights. Didn’t matter much since it was daylight. Still, it gave the place a grungy feeling. Like they were hiding the grease and sweat stains on the cherry red leather booth seats. There were televisions in each corner of the eatery, all with the same sports commentary on mute. It appeared to be at half capacity with most groups occupying the booths. 

Kali hopped onto a bar stool. Robin took a seat beside her. The waiter finally came around after gabbing nonstop to another patron about last night’s game or whatever. Robin paid for everything, having saved up a couple hundred for a rainy day such as this actually quite sunny day. 

A couple waters were slid their way in tall glasses. Robin noticed Kali’s lack of ice, but said nothing on the matter. She did judge silently. 

“I could’ve just used an illusion,” Kali said after some time. She demonstrated this on her own water, making it red. “Liquids are easier without ice,” she explained the mystery that didn’t need explaining. But damn if she didn’t explain it so n _ice_ ly.

“Yeah, Kal’, that’s cool and all, but I’d rather not have to run back to the van when they find out,” Robin said.

Kali held her arms out in exasperation. “You dork! That’s the fun part about being on the road! It gets your muscles stretched and your blood pumping!” She flexed her arms in demonstration. Robin snickered.

“We can go for a run around a rest stop or something,” she suggested, tracing her finger along her drink’s rim.

Kali bit the side of her lip, thinking as she watched Robin’s fidgeting. She exhaled aggravatedly. “We gotta do it once. A gas station. _Please_.” 

Robin nodded defeatedly. “Ok, fine. I guess that feels a little bit better than a small town diner that’s trying to fend off the rise of McDonald’s.”

She leaned forward, manspreading slightly. She took a swig of water. She held the glass out from her face, examining her reflection. Despite everything, it was still her.

“I always wanted my own little diner. It’s probably a bad time anymore,” Robin said. 

“Not necessarily,” Kali replied vacantly, eyes focused downward. She went to take a drink but kept her lips settled on the rim, thinking. She brought it down and glanced at Robin. “We could open one when things calm down. Maybe a coffee shop might do better.”

“Maybe,” Robin murmured, setting her own drink down. She eyed Kali strangely. Only because Kali was eyeing _her_ strangely. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Kali smoothed her hair back and looked down, catching herself. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just been a while, that’s all.”

“Since we ate?”

“You... _could_ say that.”

A sudden rush of heat overtook Robin’s neck and cheeks. She crossed her legs, trying not to think of that right now; but, she already felt like the drink in front of her, complete with the condensation on the outside of the glass. She cursed that little half-purr, half-growl Kali affected her come-ons with. 

Robin directed her attention up at the left corner television, lips poked slightly inward for fear of an unwanted groan in public. She took a long drink of water and rode out the arousal.

“You good, Sister Robin?” Kali asked, drinking in Robin’s bothered countenance with her knuckles on her cheek.

“I’m not a virgin,” Robin huffily reminded Kali. 

Kali pointed at herself and nodded, remembering that yes, of course she was the one who took it in the first place.

“Whatever,” Robin pushed her shoulder. “Even if I was a nun, I don’t think I could just... sit there. At some point— y’know—I’d have to... and since there’s no men around...”

“Yeah, I get it Buckley. You’d like to Fuckley.”

“Kali, there are children!” Robin half-screeched, throwing herself around her as if it would stop what had already come out. She came back to her seat as Kali began to lean rightward out of her grip. “Also that was the worst pun I’ve ever heard.”

Kali rolled her eyes. “You can’t tell me no one called you that in high school.”

“No one cared enough to?” Robin guessed.

“Well, we’re gonna Fuckley tonight,” Kali whispered with a put-on suaveness.

Robin held her head in her hands.

“I cannot believe I’m dating you.”

  
💾

  
Robin slipped The Ultimate Tape of Seduction into the van’s cassette player. She let her fingers linger there, thinking about what she’d be doing later. 

“Dude, hurry up!” Kali shouted from the backseat. 

“I gotta make sure it plays right!” Robin yelled over her shoulder.

When the horn and strings came waltzing in through the van’s speakers all dolled up in those jazzy heels, followed by the tiptoeing ballet of the right end of the piano, Robin felt satisfied to maneuver herself over the armrest, deftly moving over the handbrake one leg at a time, and carefully positioning herself over a topless Kali. 

She couldn’t help but snicker a bit though. Kali raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Just feels like I’m a... stripper or something in this position,” Robin admitted with a slightly nervous laugh. 

“Do you want to switch?”

“No,” Robin mumbled, biting her lip as she focused on fitting Kali’s lap between her thighs. “This is fine,” she decided. 

“Ok,” Kali breathed, leaning in. 

Kali met her pressed lips with open ones, closing them over Robin’s bottom lip and nibbling slightly to coax them open. Robin did so with pleasure, immediately working her tongue to meet Kali’s as they began to forget what it meant to breathe, only knowing the pulse, and the pressure, and the tempo of the waves ebbing and flowing between them. 

Robin leaned back, confident that she wouldn’t fall in Kali’s tight grasp. “Satisfied?” she asked over Nina Simone’s crooning.

“Oh, not even close,” Kali growled. 

She pulled Robin back in and immediately went to work nipping at her neck, and once Robin removed her choker between whimpers, Kali’s tongue began to roam over her neck, lips closing over the place where she’d soon begin to make marks. Robin elicited a deep moan, raking her hands down Kali’s back, underneath her bra strap, holding onto it for dear life as Kali moved her hands up to the other side of her neck and beneath her. Robin effused a sharp cry of pain as teeth closed on the area just above her carotid. And just. Fuck. Fuck, that had no right to be that amazing. 

As _Everybody Wants to Rule the World_ ’s synth burst into life and with it another moan from another tiger kiss, Robin made a mental note to pick up a scarf at the next stop. 

  
Maybe some band-aids too for good measure.

  
💾

  
After riding several waves of euphoria, Kali managed to slip her jacket back on and slide the side door open. Robin laid on the floor, spent. It was only when Kali tugged at her hands from a standing position outside the car that Robin decided she could _probably_ move her legs. 

They sat in the doorway, Kali’s jeaned legs positioned on top of Robin’s bare ones. It wasn’t like anyone could see them driving by. They were parked on the side of the road, facing a rather picturesque field of tall grass. 

As they made their approach west, the mountains became a nonissue in terms of the view, and tonight the moon began to wane. Thankfully, the clouds had decided to fuck off, and things were pretty clear. 

Robin leaned over Kali’s legs, propping her chin up on her knuckles. “So do you see your illusions, too?” Robin asked.

“Yeah. I think it’d be pretty hard to focus on them otherwise,” Kali answered.

“What’s the prettiest sky you’ve ever seen? I’d like to see it too.”

Kali leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She craned her neck to look out of the door fully. A gold circle enveloped her eyes as the sky somehow darkened further, all stars vanishing and the moon waning even further. Then, almost like a reflection of Kali’s eyes, a stream of golden light shone from behind the moon as if pushing back against it. 

“I never saw it myself, but that’s what I imagine it would’ve looked like. It was a few years ago. One of the lab staff came back from up north a week after, bragging about his once in a lifetime experience,” Kali said with a roll of her eyes. “I guess it sounded cool. So sometimes I make eclipses for my own viewing pleasure. Not sure how accurate it is.”

Robin let her arms rest over Kali’s legs as she stared upward, entranced. “I don’t care. It’s gorgeous,” she managed. “Thank you.” 

Kali took Robin’s hand and pressed a kiss against it. She looked at her with heavy lids. 

Whatever she wanted to say, she chose not to. She didn’t have to. Despite sharing the same sentiments, Robin didn’t have to either. The sun and moon said enough for the both of them. They couldn’t hear a thing except for the rustle of leaves and the rush of a nearby river.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, there it is! hope you all enjoyed! let me know if you liked this or would like to see more of this ,, uh,, AU i guess? idk how to call it. thank you for sticking around! 👋^v^ 
> 
> i wish i had something more to say but i guess thats the nature of having worked on a fic for ten months(and it really has been ten months i promise thats not just me trying to get in another ten reference lol). i guess im off to go work on that stoncy au. or maybe that rpgmaker game ive been sitting on for a while lmao who knows. anyway if u wanna see more of my art or anything my tumblr is @ thatonepieceofart lol see yall around


End file.
